Add another robot to the list of helping bots for seniors. A robot named Charlie rolled into a New Zealand retirement village on Monday to take residents' vital signs, deliver their medication reminders, and call for assistance if they fall.
Charlie's trial stint at Selwyn Retirement Village in Auckland's Point Chevalier is, in part, a response to a University of Auckland study exploring seniors' attitudes toward robots.
The study--part of a three-year "HealthBots" collaboration by the University of Auckland and Korea's Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute--collated the opinions of Selwyn Retirement Village residents, their families, and staff on what tasks health care robots could perform and what the mechanical helpers should look like.
Results showed respondents felt most comfortable with robots taking vital signs such as blood pressure, calling for help, lifting heavy objects, cleaning, and making phone calls to a doctor or nurse. They did not identify personal care, medical advice, and assessing emotions as tasks they'd like to see taken over by robots.
Posing with Charlie the robot are HealthBots team members (from left) Rebecca Stafford, Bruce MacDonald, and Elizabeth Broadbent.
(Credit: University of Auckland)As far as physical appearance, residents and staff indicated they preferred a "middle-age robot" with a clear voice, though they didn't have a preference for male or female features. The robot shouldn't be too human-like, they suggested, with some residents explicitly saying they'd rather be tended to by a robot without a face. The preferred design was silver and around 4 feet tall, so the robot was not too imposing, with wheels and a screen.
Enter Charlie, which pretty much fits that description. ... Read more
I have nothing against smoking, save for the difficult odor that emanates from every part, breath, and piece of clothing belonging to a smoker. I could no more live with a smoker than I could live with a third ear perched off the end of my nose.
However, I am embalmed in a curious sympathy after reading a report from The Consumerist concerning two Mac users whose AppleCare warranties appear to have been voided due to the presence of cigarette smoke in their homes.
One, named Derek, recounts the tale of his overheating black MacBook. He took it into the Apple store in Jordan Creek, West Des Moines.
He told The Consumerist: "Today, April, 28, 2008, the Apple store called and informed me that due to the computer having been used in a house where there was smoking, that has voided the warranty and they refuse to work on the machine, due to 'health risks of secondhand smoke.'"
He continued: "Nowhere in your AppleCare terms of service can I find anything mentioning being used in a smoking environment as voiding the warranty."
Derek's resulting appeal to the office of Steve Jobs bore him no joy, so he resorted to blowing some compressed air at the machine, leading it to restart its wondrous functions.
Then along came Ruth, who took her son's iMac to an authorized repair center. After five days, they apparently told her they couldn't work on it because it was contaminated with cigarette smoke and was therefore a bio-hazard.
... Read more
A "patient" choosing the Australia theme, one of 10 currently available in the Ambient Experience suite of the National Heart Centre Singapore's cardiac catheterization laboratory.
(Credit: Philips)Cardiac patients undergoing procedures at the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS) starting Thursday may find themselves either immersed in a Disney World setting or the African Savannah, with accompanying audio playing in the background. It's part of a testbed project by the center involving Philips' Ambient Experience to soothe patients through the intimidating clinical process of preparation, examination, treatment, and post-procedure.
The Ambient Experience takes patients on a multimedia ride, letting them personalize the lighting, projected images, and sounds in the examination or lab room. The 10 themes can be selected via a menu on a wireless touch-screen tablet, with more themes on the way. Once picked, the patient's choice is projected on the walls and ceilings and through TV screens, wrapping the user in a multi-sensory setting of his or her own choosing.
The wireless touch screen lets the patient instantaneously personalize the room's "theme."
(Credit: Philips)So far, the Ambient Experience appears to have had a positive impact on the three patients who earlier sampled it. According to 75-year-old Neo Bee, who was at the cardiac catheterization laboratory to have angioplasty to open her blocked arteries, "I saw birds and kangaroos on the ceiling and there was soothing music, too. I felt calm and relaxed."
... Read more
(Credit:
GoodGuide)
Just in time for the crazed holiday shopping season, San Francisco-based GoodGuide releases the first iPhone app that lets you scan bar codes for what the guide calls "impartial" health, environmental, and social responsibility ratings of not only the products you are scanning but their companies, too.
GoodGuide's free app lets you scan an item's bar code and instantly retrieve info on that product's health, environmental, and social responsibility ratings.
(Credit: GoodGuide)As our Webware staff wrote in August, "GoodGuide is the reason we have awards for tech services and products: it's a small and relatively unknown service that demonstrates real leadership on the Web." And as we report in Health Tech just this week, GoodGuide is an invaluable resource when shopping for toys, as it provides the levels of lead, mercury, chlorine, etc., that might be in the toys.
But GoodGuide's newest app is quite possibly the group's pinnacle achievement thus far. Now, instead of having to be organized enough to do your research online before hitting the stores, or using the app's 2008 iteration, which involves entering a product into a GoodGuide database on your phone, now anyone with an iPhone can literally scan bar codes while shopping.
Seriously, this could become a tick. I kind of want to spend all day scanning bar codes with the same fervor I used to pop package bubbles as a kid. As GoodGuide spokesperson Suzanne Skyvara (mother of two boys, ages 8 and 5) tells me in a delightful English accent that somehow makes everything sound healthy and socially responsible: "It's making it easier to be good. We all want to do this, but god, who's got the time to research it all?"
I envision scoffing with delight at the higher-priced products that don't actually measure up to their less expensive counterparts, a discovery likely as satisfying as catching a poker player mid-bluff. Or, conversely, I can see justifying a slightly more expensive product that is far healthier for my body and environment.
Of course, the value of such a system hinges on how good the information is. GoodGuide licensed Occipital's RedLaser bar code-scanning technology for this app and culled ratings for more than 62,000 food, personal care, household chemical and toy products and companies, and plans to add thousands more every month. Learn more about GoodGuide's rating system here.
Best of all, of course, is that GoodGuide's app is free--a fact that also sounds delightful in an English accent. All you need is the funds to own an iPhone, but that's a different story.
It even looks good.
(Credit: Withings)You take a scale. You give it Wi-Fi. And then you let it log in to your Twitter account to tell the world how much you weigh each morning. That's what this is: the Wi-Fi Body Scale.
At first it sounds silly, but the more I think about it the more I like the idea. If I'm trying to lose weight, this is a good way to force me to watch what I eat lest I embarrass myself in front of my Twitter followers. If it shows me blowing up like a whale instead of dropping pounds then I don't just know I'm doing something wrong, my peers do, too. Shame can be a powerful tool.
The $159 scale already records the user's body weight, lean and fat mass, and calculated body mass index (BMI) to a secure Web site accessible by the user. The Twitter integration, though, is a new feature. The Twitter feature is being called "peer motivation" by Withings, the scale's maker, and they're right. I'd call it "weight loss by fear as motivation," but I'm just some blogger.
A wireless digital 'plaster' that monitors vital signs is being tested on patients and volunteers at Imperial College London.
(Credit: Toumaz Technology)When you go to the doctor and you get your heart rate or blood pressure taken, the resulting data is narrow, since the measurements are taken of you doing just one thing: sitting still. True monitoring throughout someone's typical daily activities has until now been something of a pipe dream.
All that could be about to change.
A range of vital signs, including body temperature, heart rate, and respiration, is currently being monitored--continuously and remotely--by a small strip of digital plaster affixed to a patient's chest, neck, and/or arm.
... Read more
AlterG's new M300 series is smaller than the original and lower in price.
(Credit: AlterG)We got our first close look at the AlterG antigravity treadmill at a health expo in San Francisco earlier this year, and at the time, the price was floating up there somewhere near the space station.
But we've good news for those who like the idea of running like an astronaut: Fremont, Calif.-based AlterG on Monday plans to announce a more affordable model, the AlterG M300. The two treadmills in the M300 series deliver the same antigravity technology as AlterG's pricey $75,000 P200 series, but at a third of the cost--$24,500 to $27,000.
Yes, we know that hardly puts the AlterG in the range of the Total Gym, but it does move the device beyond the realm of the sports elite into a bracket accessible to more gyms and physical therapy clinics.
Patty Shives, who runs on the AlterG to aid her rehabilitation from a hemorrhagic stroke, adjusts the settings on the machine.
(Credit: AlterG)Medical institutions, college athletic programs, and sports teams around the country (including the Los Angeles Lakers, Dallas Cowboys, and Arizona Diamondbacks) already use the AlterG, but wider distribution could prove beneficial for Parkinson's patients, stroke survivors, and others reporting progress as a result of the technology.
AlterG's antigravity technology was originally developed at NASA and tested at Nike's Oregon Research Project by America's top distance runners.
The treadmill works by pumping air into an enclosure that surrounds users from the waist down. They zip themselves in, and an increase in air pressure lifts them so they can run at a fraction of their actual weight (pressing the up/down arrows on the control panel decreases body weight at increments of 1 percent, as much as 80 percent).
The reduction lowers the impact on joints and muscles to improve training and performance or help provide a smooth recovery from injury or surgery. Speed and incline are adjustable as with any treadmill.
"Removing the physical burden of weight bearing has remarkable results," said Bryan Nadeau of AlterG customer Muir Orthopedic Specialists, located in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Paty Shives, 46, is one patient who has seen such results. ... Read more
If the new swine flu vaccine doesn't give you the right dose of inner peace, there's another layer of protection at your disposal. It comes from Japan, which means it looks good, too.
The new anti-H1N1 suit doesn't just make you look dapper, it supposedly also helps keep you disease-free.
(Credit: Haruyama Trading)According to the U.K. Telegraph, Japanese menswear company Haruyama Trading has developed a suit that it claims can protect wearers from the H1N1 virus.
The suit is coated with titanium dioxide--a chemical commonly used in toothpaste and cosmetics--that breaks down when reacting with light and supposedly kills the virus upon contact. (If you read Japanese, here is the company's press release.)
Despite the new layer of protection, the suit seems pretty much like other suits commonly worn by Japanese white-collar workers. Each suit costs about $580, about how much a decent suit at Men's Wearhouse costs. The suits go on sale Thursday and in four colors and styles, including medium gray, charcoal, navy, and a gray pinstripe. The company says the suit will retain its protective capability even after being washed multiple times.
Japan, like many other places in Asia, has been gripped by the swine flu since its outbreak a year ago. According to the World Health Organization, more than 340,000 people have been infected with H1N1 worldwide; the disease is responsible for 4,100 deaths.
Generally, most of the new cases were reported to take place in urban areas, where population density increases the risk of transmission. It's unclear if there will be a female version of the suit; it's also unknown when or if the suit will be on sale in the U.S.
BERLIN--In the midst of America's raging debate on the future of health insurance, one man says he has a solution to out-of-control health care costs: more robots.
A prototype robotic telepresence "nurse."
(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET)Of course, this is coming from Colin Angle, a roboticist and CEO of iRobot, the company that makes both robotic vacuum cleaners and bomb-defusing gadgets currently in use by the U.S. military. At IFA here on Friday, he said that robotic telepresence devices, which would act like nurses in a person's home, could reduce the $2.2 trillion, or 17 percent of the U.S. GDP, currently spent on health care every year.
Angle insisted that when it comes to elderly people staying at home instead of moving to a nursing home, or a sick patients that don't need care such as surgery, "all of the things over time can be done with robots."
He's not talking about the kind of robot that the average person might think of, like Rosie from "The Jetsons" or Honda's Asimo. (In fact, Angle says those anthropomorphic style bots are "a technological marvel, but nearly, utterly useless.") Rather, the robotic nurses he has in mind look more like a machine than a man; more similar to the Roomba and Scooba household robots that Angle helped invent.
Instead of patients with chronic illnesses constantly going to a hospital for even minor treatments and checkups, a telepresence device could act as a proxy for the doctor to check in on them. The robot could examine, diagnose, and make sure a prescription is administered on the right schedule. The patient, in other words, wouldn't have to set foot in a hospital unless he or she needs care that is only available there.
The same model would cut the cost of nursing homes for aging people with a diminished ability to perform normal household tasks. In the future, robots are expected to be able to handle tasks such as daily medical reminders, cleaning the house, preparing food, and transportation.
The Roomba, from iRobot.
(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET)While robots aren't cheap, neither are hospital visits. And Angle says he's encouraged by the money that people are already spending on home automation systems and devices. He says that half a million people in the U.S. last year spent between $2,000 and $3,000 each on equipment such as security monitoring services, and that in the next three years, that number will jump to over 7 million. In other words, the idea of spending money to keep an eye on things in your home isn't a totally foreign concept.
Skeptical about robot "nurses"? Angle says he's heard that reaction before. "Our biggest problem is that nobody believes robots work. It's like science fiction," he said.
The sales of Roombas and Scoobas, and the $35 million order that iRobot took from the U.S. Army earlier this week certainly aren't fictional, but there's quite a ways to go before robots can actually do all the things he has in mind. The company's first product, the Roomba vacuum cleaner, took 10 years to develop, while its iConnectr telepresence robot is limited compared to what he envisions for the future.
"That's a start," he said. "I admit we've only taken the first few steps."
Mobile heart monitoring devices have tended to suffer from inaccuracies due to the nature of being, well, mobile; they've always had trouble dealing with inputs such as high-level noises and abrupt movements. The electrocardiogram, or ECG, necklace unveiled by Belgium-based IMEC at the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference in Minneapolis Wednesday boasts long-term monitoring of cardiac performance with astonishing accuracy.
IMEC's mobile heart monitor uses a low-power amplifier and 2.4 GHz network.
(Credit: IMEC)The necklace contains IMEC's proprietary "ultra-low power analog readout ASIC" (application-specific integrated circuit), relying on a low-power commercial radio/microprocessor platform. A heartbeat detection algorithm is embedded in that processor, and a second ultra-low power microcontroller transmits data wirelessly from the necklace to a computer within 10 miles. (If the computer is not within range, a memory module stores this data until it can be transmitted.)
IMEC, which partnered with the Netherlands-based Holst Centre to develop this ECG prototype, says the algorithm copes with baseline wander, electromyography (electrical impulses of muscles), movement, and sound. It achieved "best-in-class" performances, with 99.8 percent sensitivity and 99.7 percent predictivity.
While the ECG necklace could be used for the permanent screening of the elderly, and of people with cardiovascular disorders, healthy athletes might also find the data useful in measuring and analyzing their own hearts under the duress of extreme sport.
I can't help but pay homage to my former colleague and lunchtime running partner Bill Goggins at Wired magazine, who may have benefited greatly from this kind of technology. Just moments after waving jovially for cameras in the San Francisco marathon in 2006, the 43-year-old former deputy editor collapsed at mile 24 and died of apparent heart failure.
Development and further study of this prototype might finally answer the pressing question: could a mobile heart monitor actually save lives?
