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A new portable device lets doctors conduct a quick, non-invasive pediatric eye exam--and hopefully detect vision problems early.

The PediaVision Assessment Solution (PAS), scheduled to be demonstrated at the American Academy of Pediatrics meeting in Boston this week, uses an infrared camera to take digital images of the eye in children as young as six months. The screener consists of a small, handheld unit; a printer; and a laptop with preinstalled software.

Basically, the PAS projects an infrared light through the pupil onto the retina from a distance of 3 feet (good for shy kids who don't like people up in their faces). Depending on the refractive problem, the reflected light forms a specific brightness pattern within the pupil. The administering doctor then gets a digital printout of the results in about five seconds.

(Credit: PediaVision)

Florida-based PediaVision--which was founded by a team of optometrists and ophthalmologists--says the device can be used by non-vision specialists to detect conditions including near-sightedness, far-sightedness, blurred vision, and irregularly shaped corneas or lenses.

The company's CEO, David Melnik, says the PAS aims to provide the pediatricians and family practitioners who are the gatekeepers of children's health with a simple and accurate way to catch vision problems early, when they are most curable.

"Parents look to their pediatrician for early health assessments and trust their physician to thoroughly evaluate and identify any problems from birth," said Melnik, adding that pediatricians now have an easy-to-use tool for early vision assessment.

The idea here is that young children with vision problems often don't know they see the world differently than others. That, along with the fact that vision problems generally don't cause physical pain, means that many kids' vision issues often go undetected.

We'll be curious to see what docs have to say about the device once they give it a try.

(Credit: Aespironics)

Inhalers may not just be for asthma sufferers anymore. If an Israeli start-up called Aespironics has its way, small, cheap inhalers could soon deliver all sorts of other medications, as well.

Aespironics has developed a novel disposable dry-powder inhaler that it says has the attributes of the highest-performing inhalers but only costs a fraction of the price. The patient's breath activates a tiny turbine inside the device that scrapes or brushes micronized particles into the airflow, quickly and evenly delivering the dose to the lungs without leaving particles sticking to the inside of the mouth.

Because the turbine is activated via breathing, expensive electrical additions found in other inhalers of the same class are unnecessary.

Testing on the credit card-size device is due to begin by the end of the year, with the product possibly hitting the market within three years, the company says. Applications could include migraine treatment and situations that call for emergency medicine.

Aespironics was founded more than a year ago with a $600,000 investment from Israeli venture capital firm Maayan Ventures, and matching funds from the Israeli Ministry of Science. The company plans to begin its next round of financing in a month.

(Via Israel21C)

With Medtronic's "M-Powered Concept Car," drivers can get blood glucose readings through the dashboard.

(Credit: Courtesy of Medtronic)

If someone with diabetes is driving down the road and starts to feel a hypoglycemic attack coming on, that person may realize what's happening and stop to get a bite to eat. Or not, which could lead to trouble. That latter scenario inspired Medtronic's "M-Powered Concept Car" and its onboard glucose-monitoring system.

With data transmitted via Bluetooth, the wireless setup lets people wearing a continuous glucose-monitoring system (CGMS) get readings of their blood sugar levels through audio and visual cues from the car's dashboard. Medtronic, a medical-device manufacturing company, premiered the car at the 68th Annual Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association, which is wrapping up Tuesday in San Francisco.

Steven Cragle, Medtronic's senior director of communications, said people with diabetes risk losing consciousness due to a sudden drop in blood sugar levels. Diabetics with active lifestyles could possibly experience this while driving.

"Losing consciousness while driving is obviously not a good thing and statistics can back up that this is a safety risk for people with diabetes," he said. "We wanted to make driving safe and possible."

The system looks a lot like a GPS unit. With it onboard, drivers are informed when they have a drop in blood sugar levels, and are urged to pull over or given directions to the nearest restaurant or rest stop. The company said a future system would allow the car to dial up medical assistance once the driver has abnormal levels of blood glucose or fails to respond to prompts.

For now Medtronic has no estimate of when, or if, the car will enter the market.

The "M-Powered Concept Car" is the most recent addition to what appears to be a growing field of products that help patients monitor their medical conditions.

Germany's Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft research institute, for example, recently conceived of a digital assistant that measures a wearer's respiratory signals and transmits the information to a cell phone or a PDA. If the value fails to reach a predefined level, the system sets off an alarm.

And the Tyndall National Institute in Ireland has come up with a radiation detector that fits inside an implantable medical device to measure how well radiation therapy is working for cancer patients.

Medtronic shows off its concept car at the American Diabetes Association's meeting in San Francisco.

(Credit: Courtesy of Medtronic)

DUBLIN, Ireland--It knows when you are sleeping. It knows when you're awake.

"It" is neither Santa Claus nor a monster in the closet. Rather, it's technology from Dublin-based BiancaMed that can track and analyze a person's sleep and night-breathing patterns without disturbing the sleeper, said CTO Philip de Chazal. In contrast with some sleep analysis systems used in laboratories, the person doesn't need to wear electrodes or lie on a plastic pad. Instead, a wireless device tracks the sleeper's movements.

BiancaMed's Philip de Chazal with the front end of the Baby Monitor. Click for more photos of the company's device.

(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET News.com)

Software devised by BiancaMed separates the signals corresponding to breathing and other body movements. In the morning, users log on to a personal Web site to see when they were awake, when they slept, how long it took them to fall asleep, and other metrics, including sleep efficiency (that is, how much of time spent in bed was time spent sleeping).

Eventually, the company also wants to track people as they move through the different levels of sleeping.

BiancaMed's SleepMinder device is for adults. Its Baby Monitor system lets parents listen to their children sleeping--and if a child doesn't breathe for 15 seconds, it sends an alarm.

The idea here is to target the largely overlooked area of sleep therapy, de Chazal said. A good deal of attention--and gadgetry--has already been directed toward other areas of personal health, from sports and fitness to eldercare.

Sleep ranks right up there with a good diet and exercise in staying healthy, de Chazal said. Lack of sleep, meanwhile, has been associated with a host of problems, from overeating to poor performance at work or school. More than 82 million Americans, or roughly 40 percent of the teen and adult population, suffer from some form of regular insomnia.

"Sleep is the final frontier," de Chazal said. "There is very little attention on it."

BiancaMed was spun out of NovaUCD, the technology incubator at University College Dublin. In an effort to boost its tech economy, Ireland is plunking money into research and development with the intent to commercialize interesting ideas. Overall, Ireland wants to double the number of Ph.D.s that graduate in the hard sciences by 2013. Many of the major universities here revved up technology incubators in the past few years.

Many scientists see the attraction right away. Others need prompting, said Pat Frain, who runs NovaUCD.

"We make sure they know that funding could be cut if there is no economic benefit," Frain said.

BiancaMed got its start by developing a wireless sensor for detecting sleep apnea for a company called ResMed. It takes only a couple of nights to determine whether someone has the condition. Sleep monitors--conceivably--can make the same basic technology a daily part of life, the company hopes.

The Baby Monitor has already received FDA approval and is expected to hit store shelves in the United States toward the fourth quarter, priced at around $200. The company will begin conducting FDA tests on SleepMinder toward the middle of the year.

Later, BiancaMed hopes to insert its motion sensors into wristwatches and turn them into heart monitors.

It's not the amount that counts--it's the first few milliliters.

That's the word from Helen Lee, an associate professor at the University of Cambridge, who invented the FirstBurst, that device you see in her hands. It captures the first part of a male patient's urine sample and seals it off into a tube. Those initial milliliters are the ones doctors need for testing. Lee hopes to see the device get shipped into emerging markets to help health professionals. (She has also invented a device for rapidly testing for chlamydia.)

Helen Lee and the FirstBurst

(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET Networks)

The FirstBurst testing has been fairly rigorous. Her group has set up a simulated bladder in a lab that can hold about as much liquid as someone who drank seven beers. Lee has also conducted tests at a local pub. They set up a curtain and asked for volunteers. You need to do real life testing, after all, she said.

"It doesn't matter if you are left handed or right handed," she said. "One of the real surprises has been that men have just as many problems with aim as women do."

Lee was invited to Buckingham Palace to receive and award and met Prince Philip, who had a number of questions too, particularly about the direction for approaching the device. No word on if he actually tested it.

Lee, who has also started a company called Diagnostics for the Real World to help commercialize the device, was in San Jose, Calif., this week to receive an award from the Tech Museum of Innovation.

The FirstBurst (the name just sort of came up in a conversation once and stuck) can't be used to avoid stops on a road trip, she emphasized. It only catches the first few milliliters. It's a question she gets a lot.

Hair plugs. It's a topic no one wants to talk about. Getting hair plugs is a sign of vanity. Besides, what if, instead of using spare arm or leg hair, they plant those crinkly, thick hairs from your big toe onto your head?

Restoration Robotics can't help with that problem, but it will help with the actual planting. The company has created a robot that assists doctors in this part of the operation. Now, doctors put in the hair plugs by hand, just like rice farmers. These robots can save time, money, etc.

A less desirable alternative

(Credit: Party Domain)

The company has also just raised $25 million in a second round of financing, according to VentureWire (subscription required). The company will use the money to conduct clinical trials and move to market. Earlier, it raised $11 million. Despite all the money, the company is still somewhat secretive.

"You have Rogaine and Propecia, but those don't give you the same effect, or there's the comb-over," CEO Jim McCollum told VentureWire. Hey, Jim, what about the cinnamon roll? You forgot that hairdo.

Medical devices are getting big and venture money has been streaming in. Israel, which has a large number of doctors and engineers, has been a hot market. Hair removal and cellulite sculpting company Syneron Medical had a successful IPO a few years back.

The U.S. is seeing a surge too. Recently, Satiety raised $30 million for a in-patient stomach stapling device. Normally, doctors have to perform surgery on obese patients to staple stomachs. Cellutions, for cellulite sculpting (not like ice sculptures, more to smooth it out) raised $7 million this summer.

Matsushita Electric Industrial has unveiled a bodysuit to assist those recuperating from partial paralysis. The inflatable "power jacket" sells for about $17,000, according to Ubergizmo. The 4-pound exoskeleton has sensors at the joints and can control up to eight artificial muscles.

CNET News.com reported on the robotic jacket in late September when it debuted at the Home Care Rehabilitation Exhibition in Tokyo. This popular item, however, seems to be making the rounds this month on the blog circuit, so why deprive you of photos?

(Photo: Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images)

Given Imaging has come up with another pill for use in examining your insides.

Although it seems comical, this is one gadget you will really be happy about someday. The PillCam Colon Capsule Endoscope is essentially a large pill with cameras inside it for viewing the colon.

Like the PillCam ESO for the esophagus and the PillCam SB for the gastrointestinal tract, patients swallow the pill with water, according to Given Imaging.

The PillCam Colon can generate up to 144,000 images over a 10-hour period, and includes additional features suited to the large intestine that the PillCam SB lacked. In tests, the device picked up on polyps that a regular colonoscopy did not detect.

The PillCam Colon Capsule Endoscope is expected to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by the end of 2006, according to Given Imaging. Other versions of the pill, like the pediatric version used for detecting conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, have been approved in the U.S. since 2003.

According to information on Given Imaging's Web site, capsule endoscopy is covered by several major insurance companies, including Aetna, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and Oxford. Software for the device is available in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Dutch and Finnish.

As Medgadget pointed out, the PillCam Colon was unveiled at the United European Gastroenterology Week in Berlin.

Now there's no excuse not to get checked.

(Photo: Given Imaging)