Irregular Heart Beat Detecting Blood Pressure Monitor by Edwin - on January 23, 2011

When one gets old, you would notice that your body tends to start breaking down whether you like it or not. Of course, if you had taken good care of it, then chances are pretty good that you will ease into old age in a less painful and more comfortable manner than your mates. Well, for some of us out there, our heart beats tend to end up getting irregular with our blood pressure shooting up after we retire as we look at our finances and realize that our savings aren’t enough to help us last through the next 30 years.

Enter the Irregular Heart Beat Detecting Blood Pressure Monitor from Hammacher – this blood pressure monitor will also detect a heart arrhythmia. Basically, whenever the monitor detects that your heart beat is 25% slower or faster compared to its average rhythm, an arrhythmia symbol will illuminate the LCD. This machine relies on the oscillometric method which has been clinically proven to detect arrhythmia and hypertension, where it will require a trio of consecutive blood pressure readings and averages the results for added accuracy. Built-in memory can store up to 30 measurements for four people (120 readings in total) which will also be time- and date-stamped to help those with failing memory.

\\

P.L.E.A.S.E. Handheld for Painless Drug Administration Soon to Hit the Market

P.L.E.A.S.E. has already demonstrated its clinical utility and we are delighted now to have a CE Mark that will allow us to make the technology available widely in the form of P.L.E.A.S.E. Professional," said Christof Boehler, CEO of Pantec Biosolutions. “This is an important milestone for Pantec as this device will unlock therapeutic areas with high unmet need for easy-to-use, efficient, and painless application of biologicals. We plan to start a number of clinical studies looking at a variety of applications in the coming months including trials looking at the more efficient delivery of small molecule drugs.”

P.L.E.A.S.E. stands for Painless Laser Epidermal System and it's aportable benchtop device with a diode pumped Er:YAG fractional ablative laser. They say it can be used in both cosmetic and generaldermatology medicine and that it is a more cost-efficient apparatus than other lamp pumped systems already available out there. This medical device can be easily used without the assistance of clinicians. If employed by specialized personnel, it doesn't require time-costing maintenance, thanks to its one-laser architecture.

P.L.E.A.S.E. Professional is also capable of pore properties' fine tuning, a useful feature for specific drug doses. While clinicians receive a very useful tool, the people in need of constant treatment through shots will also have a powerful ally that will save them from trips to the hospital and even from the fear of needles. Being a painless system, I find it very comfortable for anyone to use.

Toshiba Rx Medical Tablet concept has promise

Cooper envisages medical staff wandering the hospital halls with these tablets, using voice and handwriting recognition – together with on-screen keyboards – to interact with digital patient records.  Rather than have a number of stationary desktop PCs, instead the hospital would have a number of keyboard base-stations which would wirelessly recharge the tablet together with offering a traditional QWERTY ‘board for speedier note entry.

We’re particularly enamoured by the integrated hand-strap on the back of the Rx Medical Tablet, which looks like it would also work as a pretty decent carry handle.  Unfortunately Cooper doesn’t appear to have any official connection to Toshiba, so we’ll have to wait a little longer to see this in production.

Diabetes: There's an App (and iPhone/iPod Accessory) for That

It's extremely interesting to watch just how the iPhone and iPod are changing the world as we know it, especially via their App store and various accessories, which can turn Apple's handhelds into just about anything one might think of, from a mobile payment terminal to ablood glucose monitoring solution.Yeah, that's actually pretty impressive, since there are a lot of people suffering from diabetes out there, many of whom have to constantly check the level of sugar in their blood.

For this reason, Sanofi-Aventis, a very well-known healthcare company, has just released the iBGStar, the first available blood glucose meter that seamlessly connects to the Apple iPhone and iPod touch.

The device is described as an innovative blood glucose meter with a compact, stylish body that can be used on its own or connected to an Apple iPhone or iPod touch to easily display, manage and communicate your diabetes information.

Plus, using it is extremely simple, since it only requires the patient to insert the test strip in order to begin the analysis.

The samples are analysed using Dynamic Electrochemistry, an intelligent technology that delivers very accurate results.

Naturally, all of this is possible via the iBGStar Diabetes Manager App, that has to be downloaded and installed the first time the iBGStar is connected to the iPhone.

The iBGStar will automatically sync data each time it is connected to an iPhone or iPod touch and the iBGStar Diabetes Manager App is launched.

The glucose meter from Sanofi-Aventis will probably retail for somewhere in the vicinity of $80,which makes it an extremely interesting solution, all things considered.  

New Generation of Digital Stethoscopes

The ultimate in stethoscope sound quality.
Adjust volume for faint heart sounds, obese patients, noisy work environments, etc.

It will greatly improve the diagnosis of sublte murmurs, or taking blood pressure.

Suitable for students or academic research recordings, the ds32a sets new standards in electronic stethoscope audio quality and ease-of-use.

ECG device connects to your iPhone to keep track of heart

We always see some crazy gadgets at CES and sometimes the ones that sound really odd can be the most help to a few out there. Take this new gadget for the iPhone that will be showing up at CES next month. It comes from a company called Alivecor and it is an ECG system for the iPhone made in partnership with Oregon Scientific.

Each of the iPhone ECG units is expected to be about $100 and can take accurate readings of the heart that a medical professional can look at to determine if there is a serious heart issue that needs to be addressed in the hospital.

Something like this could save a user with heart problems a lot of time and money on trips to the doctor or emergency room if they think their heart might be acting up. Check out the video below to see the thing in action.

Witlings Blood Pressure monitors plugs into your iPhone

This gadget is just what it sounds like, a blood pressure system that works with the iPhone. You connect the cuff device to the iPhone charge and sync port and then an app on the iPhone gives you the BP readouts and your pulse. The app can also store the readings to compare over time and share with a doctor for managing your blood pressure.

The app also interfaces with the Withings API that allows it to upload those BP readings to the Microsoft HealthVault or Google Health. The gadget will also work with the iPad or the iPod touch