Technology is all the rage in Denmark, where some patients are using computers with medical devices, cameras and other electronics to visit the doctor.

Paperless prescriptions, online access to medical records and video chats with your doc are just a few features of the Danish healthcare system. Although not everyone has jumped on the digital bandwagon yet, about half of the country’s hospitals and nearly all primary care doctors have opted for electronic records.

An approach to medical treatment like this could drastically change the way doctors help their patients manage their health. Patients with heart conditions, for example, could log blood pressure readings to help doctors monitor response to new medications or simply to track progress.

Not only would this save the doctor and the patient time, but it could also cut costs. Since its switch to digital healthcare about ten years ago, Denmark has saved an estimated $120 million per year.

Although the system has come a long way, there are still a few kinks to work out. With the rapid change of technology, doctors and patients alike have had to adapt quickly to make the most use of these services. Budgeting, too, can be a challenge for the tax-funded program.

“We’re trying to streamline now,” Otto Larsen, director of the agency that regulates the system, said in a story by the New York Times. “There are too many systems out there.”

More and more technology is being developed to help doctors make diagnoses from afar Much of Europe has switched to electronic record-keeping, and many are embracing the switch to “telemedicine.”  U.S. legislators questioning whether a similar structure could work for the United States.

“It was a natural progression for us,” Larsen said. “We believe in taking care of our people, and we had believed this was the right way to go.”

Only time will tell whether or not the trend in digital healthcare will effectively spread.

Take Healia's Cholesterol Quiz.

A new device may be the key to unlocking speech for individuals with damage from stroke or conditions such as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The device, an electrode implant, translates brain waves into speech.

Communicating can be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for someone left mute by paralysis. Although there are existing devices that help paralyzed individuals speak, they are often inefficient for communication and tiresome for the user. This is the first to translate brain waves at the rate of natural speech.

"The most significant thing is that this shows it would be possible for someone who is paralyzed to speak in real-time rather than going through a painful typing process," lead researcher Frank Guenther said in an interview with MSNBC. "This communication is very important because these people are completely locked out from the rest of the world."

Guenther and his team tested the electrode on a 26 year-old male volunteer with locked-in syndrome, the result of a brain stem stroke. Individuals with this disorder are aware of their surroundings and can understand and react mentally, but are physically unable to respond.

The device, designed for permanent implantation without the risk of infection, is a neurotrophic electrode. The electrode is implanted in the speech-related motor cortex, an area of the brain responsible for speech planning and synthesis. After 3—4 months neurites attach to a portion of the device, allowing signals to be transmitted from the brain into the electrode. These signals are then transmitted to a computer that translate brain waves into recognizable, audible speech.

Because it is extremely difficult to differentiate the neural fluff from intentional cognition, determining which frequencies represent which sounds is a very timely process. As of now, only vowel sounds have been quickly and accurately produced. The device used for the trial had just three wires, however, and researchers believe additional wires may result in greater speech recognition capabilities.

“Our results support the feasibility of neural prostheses that may have the potential to provide near-conversational synthetic speech output for individuals with severely impaired speech motor control. They also provide an initial glimpse into the functional properties of neurons in speech motor cortical areas.”

Visit Healia's Stroke Community, or read the full study online at PLoS ONE.

Spending more than a few hours per week on the computer surfing the Internet may be adding inches to your waistline. Adults who spend three or more hours per week online are more likely to be overweight or obese, according to a study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

More than 2,500 adults from Adelaide, Australia, participated in a study correlating leisure-time computer use with body weight. Participants filled out a questionnaire, reporting web usage (excluding work-time computer use) and other low-energy leisure activities.

Participants were divided into sub-groups based on how much time they spent on the Internet—no use, low use (less than 3 hours per week), or high use (greater than 3 hours per week).

“Adults with high leisure-time Internet and computer use were more likely to be overweight or obese even if they were highly active in their leisure time, as compared to participants who did not use the Internet or computer,” study authors write.

The average time spent on the Internet was 125.3 minutes per week. Participants with high use were 1.46 times more likely to be overweight and 2.52 times as likely to be obese. They were also 2.5 times more likely to do other low-energy activities, such as watching television, for five or more hours per day.

“These findings suggest that, apart from nutritional and physical activity interventions, it may also be necessary to decrease time spent in sedentary behaviors, such as leisure-time Internet and computer use, in order to reduce the prevalence of overweight and obesity,” the authors write.

Although the results of the study are suggestive, study authors explain that there were limitations that may have affected the outcomes.

“The strong associations of leisure-time Internet and computer use with overweight and obesity may in part be explained by the association of leisure-time Internet and computer use with other leisure-time sedentary behaviors."

Further investigation on leisure-time computer use will provide more information on the effects of internet usage on health and weight.

Good news for gamers and parents—playing certain video games could actually count as exercise. New research shows that playing Wii Sports, if used correctly, could be the equivalent of a mild workout.

Sixteen volunteers, ages 20 to 24, took a fitness test to determine a baseline rating of perceived exertion (RPE).  Participants were instructed on proper usage of the game and played various Wii games while researchers monitored oxygen intake, heart rate and RPE.

The study, led by John Porcari, Ph. D., and Alexa Carroll, M.S., focused on six different activities—Free Run, Island Run, Free and Advanced Steps, Super Hula Hoop, and Rhythm Boxing.

Volunteers participated in each of the six activities randomly for 6 minutes. The Free and Island Run exercises required more energy, but neither used enough to meet the American College of Sports Medicine’s standard to affect cardio endurance.  The other activities fell below these health guidelines as well.

All of the activities did, however, burn calories. In 30 minutes, each activity burned the following number of calories:

• Free Step, 99 calories
  
• Advanced Step, 108 calories
• Super Hula Hoop, 111 calories
• Boxing, 114 calories
• Free Run, 165 calories
• Island Run, 165 calories

Although these exertion levels are significantly lower than doing similar exercise without the game, Wii Fit still used twice the calories of other video games. This is enough exertion to be considered a very mild workout.

“I guess anything is better than nothing,” Porcari says, “ but we were a little bit underwhelmed by the intensity of some of the exercises.”

An earlier study showed that certain Wii Sports activities burned more calories.

“You’re better off doing Wii Sports than Wii Fit,” Porcari explains. “In Wii Sports there’s more jumping around, and you’re not constrained by having to stand on the balance pad. I think there’s much more freedom of movement and you get a better workout.”

Thirty minutes each of Wii Sports activities burned the following number of calories:

• Wii Baseball, 84 calories
• Wii Golf, 93 calories
• Bowling, 117 calories
• Tennis, 159 calories
• Boxing, 306 calories

These findings could cut pounds for gamers in the long run, Carroll says, but it’s best not to rely on Wii alone. “Since using the Wii Fit alone may not produce results that meet recommended physical activity guidelines it is important that individuals participate in additional exercises to effectively reach these guidelines,” she says.

Read more about the Wii Fit and Wii Sports studies.

New software using cell phones may allow doctors to analyze coughs and diagnose respiratory illness, including pneumonia.

“A cough is one of the most common symptoms of illness and a common mode of disease spread,” says researcher Suzanne Smith, PhD, of STAR Analytical Services. “Yet we don’t use technology in any way to measure or understand what coughs mean.”

The program is designed to distinguish different coughs using acoustic vocalization analysis, a way to distinguish different audio tones. Researchers hypothesize that the sound of coughing varies by illness, and that these subtle differences may be enough to determine which illness a patient has.

If this is true, it could mean greater accessibility to medical services for individuals who live far from a doctor. An early diagnosis would also help determine what treatments are necessary and ensure that patients receive the proper medications they need to recover.

Efforts are currently focused on pneumonia,  a disease that kills 1.8 million children every year. Most of them live in developing countries. Software capabilities, if initially successful, are likely to grow. Cell phones could potentially be used to diagnose everything from the common cold to influenza.

The project is in its beginning stages, but the possibility of such a program could save millions of lives, not to mention billions of dollars in health care costs.

Dr. Tachi Yamada, president of the Global Health Program says that this is the exact sort of thinking it will take to tackle the world’s health challenges.

"I'm excited about their ideas and look forward to seeing some of these exploratory projects turn into life-saving breakthroughs," he says.

A visual recording tool, the SenseCam, offers great promise as a memory aid for patients with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.

SenseCam automatically snaps pictures every 30 seconds to create and archive image sequences. Its fish-eye lens creates images similar to the wearer’s natural perspective. It is also capable of recording short videos. About the size of a deck of cards, SenseCam weighs just 3.2 ounces and stores up to 30,000 pictures.

“The small size of the recall device makes it possible to integrate it into common portable consumer products, such as MP3 players, purses, clothing, hats, backpacks, necklaces, collars, and other human-wearable products,” developers wrote in the patent.

The images primarily trigger episodic recall, memory of events and experiences. This is the most common form of memory loss for Alzheimer's patients.

Lyndsay Williams invented SenseCam for Microsoft Cambridge in 1999. The device has since been used to monitor diet, anxiety triggers and disaster response volunteers. Gordon Bell, 75, one of Microsoft’s lead researchers, has been using the SenseCam to record every detail of his daily life every day for the last ten years. “I capture everything that I can that is of value,” he says. “I think of my e-memory and bio-memory as one.”

SenseCam features a 24-hour battery life, and according to Bell it’s also extremely durable. His first SenseCam lasted 4 years. That’s over 420,480 pictures! Because so much information is recorded, Bell stresses the importance of a good filing system.

“We have a collections mechanism that gives as a by-product a more general file system beyond (an organizational) tree,  ability to collect stuff together and name it, keywords, taxonomies,” he says. “My favorite organizing principle is facets.”

Apart from day-to-day activity, Bell says it’s come in handy when meeting new people at tradeshows and conferences. He’s come to depend on and respect the system a great deal, too. “All of your life’s images have a strong impact on being able to refresh your life,” he says.

SenseCam shows great potential, but further research is needed to determine its full effect on memory recall. In the meantime, you can read more about Bell's experience in his book, Total Recall, or follow MyLifeBits until the official release date is set.

Visit Healia's Alzheimer's Community.

More than thirty blind people can now see thanks to new technology that has restored their vision. To date, thirty-eight subjects from the United States, Mexico and Europe with retinitis pigmentosa have received retinal prostheses. While the degree of success has been variable across subjects the results are encouraging.
 
“So far everyone has been able to see something,” says Brian Mech, Ph. D., M.B.A., and vice president of business development at Second Sight, the company that created the device. “Some of the greatest successes are people who can read large letters. They do sometimes see color, but we haven’t yet focused on reproducing color in a controlled way,” he explains. “We want to wait until black and white is perfected before we worry about color.”

Procedures currently help individuals with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a disease responsible for roughly 200,000 cases of blindness in the United States. When light enters the eye through the pupil, it strikes the retina at the back of the eye and is converted to an electrical signal by rods and cones. In individuals with RP, these tissues deteriorate, resulting in full or partial blindness.

The restoration process starts with an image captured by a small camera attached to a pair of glasses. After streaming through a video processor, the data is then transferred back through the glasses to a tiny electrode “sheet” implanted on the retina. These electrodes use electrical impulses to communicate visual information to undamaged retinal tissue (just as healthy rods and cones would have done). The result is some degree of sight.

Currently the devices have only 60 electrodes, compared to more than 2 million in HD televisions, so images are still rough. This means that if the entire population of New Mexico plus 17,000 of their relatives were gathered in a field, only 60 would be visible.

The technology has been greatly improved from earlier 16-electrode versions. Before, objects appeared as horizontal lines. Now users can make out basic shapes; some can see faint reflections and differentiate between concrete and grass.

“Our near term goal is to get regulatory approval to market the device in Europe and the United States. This will allow us to generate revenue to fund the development of next generation prostheses with greater numbers of electrodes. This should mean more utility for the patients,” Mech explains.

Researchers from Second Sight will follow project participants for the next three years to track progress. They hope to develop versions with 200 and 1000 electrodes in the future, but so far implant recipients are pleased with results.

"Besides the objective testing that we do to show improvement in visual function, participants are often most excited by personal experiences. One woman saw the moon for the first time in about 20 years," Mech says. "Another can shoot baskets and watch her grandkids play soccer. This is significant."

Actor Dennis Quaid gave a passionate appeal for hospitals to implement electronic medical records and advanced technologies in order to prevent medical errors at the 2009 Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society conference in Chicago yesterday. Quaid relayed how in 2007, his 10-day-old twins nearly died after they were mistakenly given 1,000 times more of the blood thinner drug heparin than intended at a Los Angeles hospital. The near-lethal dose caused massive hemorrhaging. The mistake was attributed to very similar packaging of different heparin bottles intended for infants and adults. The twins are now healthy.

Quaid believes that technologies such as computer physician-order entry and bar coding would have reduced the chance of confusing drug packaging. Since the incident, Quaid and his wife have started the Quaid Foundation to promote awareness of the need for more information technology as a way to prevent medical errors.

As part of the Administration's $787 billion economic stimulus package, $20 billion is intended for investment in healthcare IT. Government funding will be used to promote adoption of electronic medical records, increase use of computer physician-order entry systems, and create health information exchanges to better share healthcare data among providers.

Next time you are hospitalized or see your doctor, ask the provider what drugs you are receiving and, if they are not using an electronic medical record system, why not.

Have more ideas for preventing medical errors in hospitals? Share them with others at Healia Communities.

_{Photo: NathanF, Flickr, Creative Commons}

As if trauma in the ER, hospital gossip on Grey’s Anatomy, and House’s vicodin addiction weren’t enough drama, the much anticipated TV show, the Bionic Woman, starts Wednesday.

The new Bionic Woman, like the old, is a marvel of biomedical engineering. She receives not only two bionic legs, one bionic arm and a bionic ear, but also a bionic eye and advanced nanotechnology capable of healing her body at an exceptional rate.

In medicine, bionics means the replacement or enhancement of organs or other body parts by mechanical versions. Bionic implants, such as the artificial heart, mimic the original function very closely, or even surpass it. The best known bionic item is the cochlear implant, a device for deaf people.

Bionic advances continue to be made; companies like Touch Bionics and Advanced Bionics are attempting to develop life changing devices. And the aging of the world’s population means increasing demand for replacement parts. So the new Bionic Woman may not be considered science fiction for much longer. Stay tuned…

In the mean time visit www.healia.com to learn more.

 

Bionic Woman bionics biomedical engineering