Recent advances in technology have opened many possibilities for using wearable and implantable sensors to monitor various indicators of patient health. Wearable pressure sensors are designed to respond to very small changes in bodily pressure, so that physical functions such as pulse rate, blood pressure, breathing rates and even subtle changes in vocal cord vibrations can be monitored in real time with a high degree of sensitivity. Such responses occur when a substance in the sensor “gates,” or allows selected…
North Carolina State University engineers continue to improve the efficiency of a flexible device worn on the wrist that harvests heat energy from the human body to monitor health. In a paper published in npj Flexible Electronics, the NC State researchers report significant enhancements in preventing heat leakage in the flexible body heat harvester they first reported in 2017 and updated in 2020. The harvesters use heat energy from the human body to power wearable technologies – think of smart…
Research network develops digital alarm system for paediatric intensive care medicine. Working in intensive care units poses special challenges for healthcare workers. They have to safely and reliably detect whether the condition of their seriously ill patients is deteriorating in a life-threatening way, and they have to do so under great time pressure because every minute counts. The stress level increases even more when the patients are children and adolescents. In paediatric intensive care, doctors are confronted with the problem…
Researchers from Hanover, Mainz, Wuppertal and Witten develop high-resolution tomography – application conceivable for Covid-19, Alzheimer’s and cancer. Researchers from Hanover Medical School (MHH), Mainz University Hospital and HELIOS University Hospital Wuppertal at Witten/Herdecke University are leading an international, multidisciplinary consortium that makes high-resolution, three-dimensional X-ray images of the human body possible. With a maximum resolution of up to 300 nanometres, they are equivalent to one tenth of the diameter of a human hair. “The networking between radiology, pathology and…
European Laboratories aim to Create Common Standards Is the tissue healthy or pathologically altered? Is the antibiotic effective against a certain bacterium or is the bacterium resistant to it? Raman spectroscopy can help to answer such questions quickly and precisely. However, one challenge for the use of the light-based analysis method in everyday clinical practice is that the results can be highly sensitive to the measurement conditions. Approaches to solving this problem are now being provided by a large-scale European…
Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a soft, stretchy skin patch that can be worn on the neck to continuously track blood pressure and heart rate while measuring the wearer’s levels of glucose as well as lactate, alcohol or caffeine. It is the first wearable device that monitors cardiovascular signals and multiple biochemical levels in the human body at the same time. “This type of wearable would be very helpful for people with underlying medical conditions…
Getting around without the need to concentrate on every step is something most of us can take for granted because our inner ears drive reflexes that make maintaining balance automatic. However, for about 1.8 million adults worldwide with bilateral vestibular hypofunction (BVH) — loss of the inner ears’ sense of balance — walking requires constant attention to avoid a fall. Now, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers have shown that they can facilitate walking, relieve dizziness and improve quality of life in…
Mobile laboratory for rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2 for Africa The PCR test is the most accurate tool to identify SARS-CoV-2. However, valid results are often available only after days. Moreover, the laboratory must be well equipped, have trained personnel and sufficient financial resources. All of this is usually a problem in Africa. A portable suitcase could help. In cooperation with several African universities, scientists at Leipzig University have found that this mini-laboratory provides test results that are almost as good…
How new optical imaging strategies help to improve cancer diagnostics. A new book provides in-depth description of state-of-the-art optical approaches for the enhancement of earlier cancer detection and classification Cancer — this diagnosis is hitting more and more people in our aging society. But the earlier the disease is detected, the greater the likelihood that it can be treated effectively. Modern light-based technologies can help to decisively improve the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, because they can produce diagnostically relevant…
DFKI presents method for image-based diagnosis of Corona Apart from the commonly used PCR tests for the diagnosis of infections with SARS-CoV-2, the Corona virus can also be detected on computed tomography scans. With a new method of automated image recognition, this form of diagnosis can be refined and made more comprehensible for medical staff. In an international cooperation, the DFKI research department Interactive Machine Learning (IML) has developed an interactive AI system that, with a success rate of 92…
Nearly pain-free microneedle patch can test for antibodies and more in the fluid between cells. Blood draws are no fun. They hurt. Veins can burst, or even roll — like they’re trying to avoid the needle, too. Oftentimes, doctors use blood samples to check for biomarkers of disease: antibodies that signal a viral or bacterial infection, such as SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19; or cytokines indicative of inflammation seen in conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and sepsis. These biomarkers…
Using mathematical image processing, scientists at the BioTechMed-Graz research cooperation have found a way to create digital twins from human hearts. The method opens up completely new possibilities in clinical diagnostics. Although treatment options are constantly improving, cardiovascular diseases are still one of the most frequent causes of death in Europe. The success of the treatment varies from patient to patient and depends on the individual clinical picture, as Gernot Plank, researcher at the Institute of Biophysics at the Medical…
Aneurysm operations in the brain rank among the most delicate procedures in neurosurgery. The highest demands are placed on surgeons when choosing the type of intervention, planning the route and carrying out extremely delicate procedures on the blood vessel. A new training technology co-developed between Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, and ARTORG Center of the University of Bern, will further improve patient safety during future procedures: a new 4D simulator enables the planning, testing and optimization of the procedure on an…
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University report findings on an advanced nanomaterial-based biosensing platform that detects, within seconds, antibodies specific to SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to testing, the platform will help to quantify patient immunological response to the new vaccines with precision. The results were published this week in the journal Advanced Materials. Carnegie Mellon’s collaborators included the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) and the UPMC. The testing platform identifies the presence of two of the…
Transmitting sensory signals from prostheses to the nervous system helps leg amputees to perceive prosthesis as part of their body. While amputees generally perceive their prostheses as heavy, this feedback helps them to perceive the prostheses as significantly lighter, ETH researchers have shown. Leg amputees are often not satisfied with their prosthesis, even though the sophisticated prostheses are becoming available. One important reason for this is that they perceive the weight of the prosthesis as too high, despite the fact…
Researchers from the Innovation Center Computer Assisted Surgery (ICCAS) at Leipzig University and the National Center for Radiation Research in Oncology (OncoRay) in Dresden have achieved promising results with a new cancer therapy using focused ultrasound (FUS) and ionizing radiation. The results of the research group led by ICCAS director Professor Andreas Melzer have now been published in the journal “CELLS”. SONO-RAY is a collaborative project receiving more than six million euros in funding from the Federal Ministry of Education…
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