Drs. Pam Griffin and Randall Moorman at the University of Virginia Health System have developed a bedside monitoring device that detects unique cardiac rhythms, which their research shows are characteristic for the development of neonatal sepsis.
Dr. Randall Moorman, study co-author and cardiologist at the UVa Health System, was instrumental in developing the novel bedside monitoring system to predict the likelihood that sepsis will occur in a baby in the next 24 hours. The new system analyzes heartbeat signals obtained from a standard bedside heart rate monitor and looks for patterns that give an early indication that the baby is getting sick. Characteristics such as decreased variability of the heart rate along with brief episodes of slowing of the heart rate indicate that the infant may be getting an infection. These characteristic patterns can serve as an early warning to the physicians and nurses caring for the infants.
“At UVa we found characteristic heart rate patterns in infants twelve or more hours before they were known to be infected, and we designed a computer program to detect these patterns,” said Moorman. “We worked with colleagues at Wake Forest to be sure that these heart rate characteristics typical of illness happened in sick infants elsewhere.”
Now after years of testing and clearance from the Food and Drug Administration, academic research hospitals are participating in a multi-center National Institutes of Health-sponsored study to further test if heart rate characteristic monitoring improves outcomes for NICU babies.
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Enviga, a Coca Cola and Nestlé drink touted to have negative caloric balance, is now under legal fire. We have reported about the product and our scepticism on its wondrous waters back in October.
In the never ending crusade against drug resistant bacteria, researchers at the University of Portsmouth and DCS Designs Ltd., a spinoff company, designed a new type of hospital gown for patients with a special anti-bacterial coating. Predictably, neither the university nor the company are eager to reveal the technology’s details:
The ankle exoskeleton developed at U-M was worn by healthy subjects to measure how the device affected ankle function. The U-M team has no plans to build a commercial exoskeleton, but their results suggest promising applications for rehabilitation and physical therapy, and a similar approach could be used by other groups who do build such technology.
“The (artificial) muscles are pneumatic. When the computer gets the electrical signal from the (wearer’s) muscle, it increases the air pressure into the artificial muscle on the brace,” Ferris said. “Essentially the artificial muscle contracts with the person’s muscle.”
In addition, the improved haptic interface on the new LAP Mentor II offers enhanced tactile feedback, performance and reliability…
MIT researchers created a microfluidic device in which tiny bubbles, while undergoing chemical reactions inside, function essentially like electrons in a microprocessor:
But now, the MIT researchers are able to control microfluidic chips via the interactions of bubbles flowing through microchannels, eliminating the need for external controls. “Now you can program what’s happening inside the lab on a chip, by designing bubble logic circuits that function just like their electronic counterparts,” said Manu Prakash, Gershenfeld’s co-author and graduate student.
The design of the NavitrackER tracker provides superior resistance to contamination with tissue and liquids. In tests spheres exhibited a 63% loss of visibility when exposed to animal tissue. Wiping with surgical gauze restored 30% of this lost visibility, but the remaining 33% was not recovered. NavitrackER shows minimal loss of visibility which is fully restored after wiping with no remaining loss of visibilty.
