We are only two months into 2012 and it’s clear that the Quantified Self movement is increasingly gaining traction. More devices are emerging to help people quantify everything from anxiety to weight, and blood glucose to sleep patterns. But what about people who cannot use the devices or are not ambulatory themselves?

A team led by Professor Bruce MacDonald at the University of Auckland in New Zealand has been working to create a corp of medical robots – Healthbots – to help these people. Medgadget had the opportunity to interview Professor MacDonald about the Healthbots, what they do, and when we can expect to see them available to help those in need.

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Via an FCC filing we learn of a new device from Shenzhen, China-based Sensixa that can measure and record the movement and orientation of one’s head. The ear-worn device, called e-AR, is actually designed to mimic the human vestibular system that keeps you walking straight and tells you if you’ve ridden too many roller coasters. Besides the three-dimensional accelerometer, the e-AR also contains a microcontroller, battery, flash memory for storing data, and a radio for transmitting the data to a receiving unit.

The e-AR is currently being investigated for use by athletes for such applications as monitoring the effects of painful football hits, but Sensixa is also looking into the device being worn by senior citizens for those times when you’ve fallen and you can’t get up.

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Lloydspharmacy and Proteus Biomedical has announced the upcoming release in the UK of a new kind of medication compliance monitoring system that relies on sensor-enabled tablets and special body worn patches that detect their ingestion.

The product, developed by Proteus that we’ve been following for the last few years, is called Helius and its special patches can record when a pill is ingested as well as to monitor the patient’s physical activity levels. The data is then sent to a mobile device, like a smartphone or tablet, and thereby can inform a patient when to take the next dose of the medication and warn if the regimen is not being followed.

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Panasonic is releasing a new palm sized hearing instrument for mild to severe hearing loss. Looking like a common mp3 player, the JZ Power WH-105JZ has an LCD screen and a microphone built into the headphones. It features noise reduction, wind noise management, feedback management, L/R balance and Automatic Gain Control (AGC).

There’s also something called Scene Selector Function which provides quick changes depending on the audio environment the user is in including standard, music, party and indoors. It’s powered by an internal rechargeable battery which can be extended by popping in standard AAA’s.

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The world’s first robot system that learns to dress the physically disabled and elderly has been created by the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) in Japan.  The device incorporates “reinforcement learning” and remarkably adapts to the individual size and shape of the person within minutes.

The system comes from the collaboration of Barrett Technology‘s patented robotic WAM arms and NAIST‘s advanced computer intelligence.  The robot will potentially help older people or those disabled with maintaining a level of personal independence.

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HealthPrize Technologies launched its new smartphone app that motivates people to adhere to their medication regimens.

Available for the iPhone and Android devices, the app uses a system of reward points that can be redeemed for real prizes, as well as games and educational tidbits to improve medication compliance.

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Shoes with built-in GPS could be useful for two purpose: either tracking down your lost shoes or tracking down the person who is wearing them. GTX Corp figured the latter option might be useful for safety purposes, especially for people who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. The company has been developing these shoes for two years now, which will feature a built-in GPS in the heels.

The purpose of the GPS is to ensure that family or other caregivers can see where the monitored person is at any given time. A primary feature of the service is an alarm system which will alert the family or caregivers when the person who is wearing the shoes is moving beyond a certain area. In the past there have been other GPS devices, like bracelets or watches, but these can easily get lost or the user forgets  to wear them. Shoes, however, are items that are difficult to forget when venturing outside the home.

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A new mobile app has been introduced for physicians who treat patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Designed to help clinicians diagnose and treat the condition at the point of care, the software is known as the Parkinson’s Toolkit. The free mobile device app was created by the National Parkinson Foundation. Available from the iTunes store and the Android Market, the app is also offered with a companion website.

The second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease affects an estimated 1 million individuals in the United States. Internationally, the disease is thought to affect 4–6 million individuals over the age of 50. That number is expected to double by the year 2030, according to research at the University of Rochester.  Most clinicians, however, encounter a limited number of Parkinson’s patients per year, making it difficult to keep up with the latest research in the field. Complicating matters is the difficulty of accurately diagnosing and effectively treating the disease.

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We’re no strangers to devices which can assist elderly patients by detecting falls and automatically calling for help, and recently we’ve been reporting on a number of exciting medical uses for Microsoft’s Kinect video game input device. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Missouri have combined these two concepts by using the Kinect to monitor residents at an independent living community.

The new system pairs data from security system motion sensors and the Kinect to produce 3D silhouettes of residents, which can then be monitored for falls. In addition to detecting falls, the system can also help prevent falls altogether by picking up on changes in a resident’s gait which might suggest an elevated risk of falling, and automatically alerts nurses when intervention is required.

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Bruin Biometrics, LLC,  a wireless health technology company, and researchers at UCLA have developed a device for measuring the risk of pressure ulcer formation. The Sub-Epidermal Moisture (SEM) scanner is a handheld device which measures the dielectric properties of the tissue being assessed and provides an estimation of the sub-epidermal moisture which is indicative of risk of decub ulcer formation. The SEM scanner is designed to overcome current difficulties with visual pressure ulcer assessments by detecting early pressure damage before it becomes visible on the skin surface.

The scanner is intended for use in a point of care environment and can wirelessly transmit measured data for storage and analysis on Bruin Biometrics’ proprietary back end system. The video below gives a nice overview of the early clinical work on SEM that led to the development of the system. It also has some nice technical info and shots of the device itself (techies scroll to 3:30). The SEM scanner was officially unveiled in April of this year and is expected to be commercially launched in the coming months.

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