100 Million Wearable Wireless Devices Per Year

By 2016 its estimated there will be 100 million wearable health devices sold and used each year. Devices such as heart rate monitors will be used to measure athletic performance during sports and wearable blood glucose meters, will all enable greater detail in tracking and monitoring for healthcare. Current trends suggest that wireless connections provided by mobile phones will play a major part.

Ultra-low power wireless technologies such as single mode Bluetooth 4.0, existing proprietary, and the planned 802.15.6 specifications are combining with mobile handsets and social networking application capabilities to drive adoption of a new generation of body-worn sensors. These sensors have the capability of automating details on an individual’s activities to inform their doctors and even friends to drive advice and feedback.

Earlier in the week we reported on a new platform called the Electrical Epidermal System as seen in the picture above. The tattoo like ultra thin circuits stick to the skin and bend and stretch without being damaged. The possible uses for this technology also included sensing, medical diagnostics, communications and human-machine interfaces.

The sports and fitness market has been using proprietary short-range wireless connectivity in devices such as heart rate monitors for years, however the market is now reaching a new growth period where the professional healthcare market is beginning to develop wearable devices with embedded wireless communication for use in hospitals and for remote patient care.

Source: ABI Research via Businesswire

iRobot and InTouch Health Join Forces

iRobot Corp, delivering robotic technology based solutions, and InTouch Health, delivering telemedicine solutions, have announced a joint development and licensing agreement to explore opportunities for healthcare applications such as the iRobot Ava mobile robotics platform. InTouch Health and its founder Yulun Wang have been pioneers in both the use of robots in hospitals and various remote presence technologies. The agreement includes extensive cross-licensing of their patent portfolios, giving a formidable patent position.

“I am very excited about this agreement with InTouch Health, a company with a proven technology that delivers practical robotic solutions in the healthcare market. Together, we will revolutionize how people communicate and deliver information through remote presence,” said Colin Angle, chairman and CEO of iRobot.

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Implantable Health Sensors by PositiveID

Implantable health sensors may soon be a real option after PositiveID launched its 'Wireless Body Platform' in Novemeber 2010. Since then they have been rapidly developing the system with partner companies Seimens and RFID Solutions. Initially the health sensor system was designed for diabetics allowing blood sugar levels to be wirelessly read and sent to an external device. Now they have announced the ability to measure body temperature as well. The temperature sensing chip notifies people or their carers of rising body temperature giving them time to take anti viral medication which works best when taken early. 

PositiveID originally developed the 'Verichip' as an implantable GPS tracking product for tracking anyone from Alzheimers patients to military personel.  That was FDA approved in 2004. They then tried to introduce an implantable chip for storing health records, however due to ongoing public concerns over privacy, endless conspiracy theories, and a lack of a market,  the program was later dropped. 

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Raisin System Receives CE Approval

Proteus Biomedical has been pioneering a new method which integrates in-body computers, sensor and communications technologies. This week they received CE approval for their ingestible sensor and personal monitoring system, called the Raisin^TM System. It was also approved by the US FDA in April. The idea is to swallow a pill and it can monitor how patients react to taking medications. It measures the event along with related information such as heart rate, activity, body angle and patient-logged information. The ingestion event and personalized physiologic information are then sent via Bluetooth to any computerized device, such as an iPhone where it can undergo further analysis.

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Continuous Cardiac Monitoring From Mayo Clinic

Clinicians and researchers at Mayo Clinic have been testing a new device that can monitor patients with heart problems at home in hopes of keeping them healthier and out of the hospital longer. A monitoring device is strapped on the chest and measures things like heart rate, blood pressure, breathing and activity.

The information is collected and sent to a software program where trained technicians can analyze the data. The program can even ask questions back to the patient like "Do you feel any symptoms?". The information gathered can then be used to suggest seeing a doctor or to adjust medications.

It's currently only used by congestive heart failure patients but in the future it could be used by more people as a constant health monitoring tool.

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Source: Mayo Clinic channel on Youtube

VeriChip and VeriMed Health Link System - Implantable Microchip

The Verichip™ is the first human-implantable RFID chip and personal health record, cleared for medical use by the United States FDA. The $200 chip is about the size of a grain of rice and inserted just under the skin in the back of your right arm. The VeriMed™ Health Link system, incorporates the RFID microchip (the VeriChip), a handheld scanner and and an online, electronic, personal health record.

Recent advances mean the chips are now also able to read bio markers such as glucose levels. This enables diabetics to get live readings of their glucose levels without having to prick their fingers.

In September 2009 Verichip gained the exclusive rights from their development partner RECEPTORS LLC to use "artificial receptors” technology to develop a virus triage detection system for the H1N1 virus also known as swine flu. This technology can also be applied to detect other viruses and biological threats such as Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

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The Health Guide by Intel

Intel is intending to get into the health sector, and this is their latest FDA approved gadget to monitor your health. The health guide takes and checks vital signs and then sends the secured encrypted information back to doctors. Its basically a PC running windows XP thats connected to the internet - so it can also work as a video conference system.

The aim with the device is save time and money by shifting the continuous monitoring of patients with chronic health care problems, from the hospital to the home.

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New biomarker for Fatal Prostate Cancer

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – New research findings out of Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the University of Wisconsin may help provide some direction for men diagnosed with prostate cancer about whether their cancer is likely to be life-threatening. 

In a study that appears in the February issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, researchers confirmed their earlier findings that men who have too much calcium in their bloodstreams subsequently have an increased risk of fatal prostate cancer. Now researchers have also identified an even more accurate biomarker of the fatal cancer: high levels of ionized serum calcium. 

“Scientists have known for many years that most prostate cancers are slow-growing and that many men will die with, rather than of, their prostate cancer,” said Gary G. Schwartz, Ph.D., senior author of the study and an associate professor of cancer biology at the School of Medicine, a part of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. “The problem is, how can we determine which cancers pose a significant threat to life and need aggressive treatment versus those that, if left alone, are unlikely to threaten the patient’s life? These findings may shed light on that problem.” 

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