Health Tech Weekly

Re-Mission – Fighting Cancer With A Video Game (video)

admin — Tue, 21 May 2013 09:36:11 +0000

This week on Health Tech Weekly, I bring you a novel way to help kids with cancer (and maybe adults, too) fight their disease with a video game. ReMission was an existing game used by hospitals and pediatric cancer centers to give their patients a visualization tool for their fight against cancer. Now the game has been updated with new graphics and a way to play online via their web browser.

Kids Killing the Cancer Monsters

The non-profit company HopeLab created the game to “improve health related outcomes for young people with cancer.” In the game, kids fight through variety of levels where they hunt through the body and destroy cancer cell “monsters” in several different ways.

YouTube Video Trailer for Re-Mission2

Visualization and positive imagery is important to maintaining mood and boosting the immune system during what can be a long and onerous treatment regimen. Many patients have said that seeing themselves catching and killing the cancer cells while they were getting therapy helped them manage side effects and pain during their recovery.

This is a great example of health technology that comes from those who are “thinking outside of the box.” I’ll have a link to the video trailer on the Health Tech weekly site and you can go and check out the game directly at Re-mission2.org. Check it out and share it with someone you know who is battling cancer right now.

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That will wrap up this episode of Health Tech Weekly. Make sure you follow up over at out website, HTWeekly.com, for more information on this and all of our episodes. There are additional resource links, links to trusted resources for living a healthier lifestyle and more. If you have a comment on this week’s episode please get back in touch with me either over at HTWeekly.com in comment links for each article or shoot me an email at podmedic@mac.com.

Hi-Tech Nano-sponges Scrub Blood Stream (Video)

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:23:45 +0000

This week on Health Tech Weekly is a really cool piece of new technology where researchers have engineered tiny cell-like sponges that can “scrub” toxins directly from the blood stream. Now you all know how much I love a good health tech story.

Tiny Sponges Mop Up MRSA

The folks at the University of California, San Diego, have come up with tiny nano-sponges shaped like red blood cells that have the ability to absorb toxins that attack red blood cells like MRSA and snake and bee venoms. MRSA is one of those superbugs or skin eating bacteria you hear about. Because these nano-sponges work against a range of toxins, they can be more easily deployed in numerous locations.

Currently, specific anti venom varieties must be used based on the type of toxin encountered. Since these sponges work against a wide variety of toxins they are much more effective. They are already proven to work in the lab on mice. When pre-dosed in mice who later received a lethal toxin dose, 86% survived. When the nano-sponges were administered after the toxin, survival rate was still 44% despite the lethal dose.

Game Changing Health Technology

This could change how we treat or even prophylactically manage exposure to certain toxic substances or situation. It also points to other more advanced treatments using similar engineered nano-technologies. Stay tuned for more on this one.

I urge you to check out the entire article that talks about how they removed the membranes from red blood cells and then wrapped them back around the cell shaped sponges. Just fascinating. Because the sponges are covered in the person’s own cell membranes, the immune system ignores them and leaves them to do their job before being broken down by normal body metabolism.

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Home Health Monitoring With Ideal Life (video)

admin — Tue, 07 May 2013 11:40:00 +0000

Ideal Life is a fairly mature platform in a business-to-business model where we’ve been selling to health plans, insurers, hospital groups, home care agencies for managing people with chronic conditions like congestive heart failure, COPD, diabetes, et cetera. They’ve developed a complete end-to-end solution of wireless biometric monitoring devices like you see behind going through a very low-cost gateway up to our software which is a cloud-based collaborative care system. So it allows them to get real-time data that becomes actionable for sending back questions and getting survey data and building alerts and interacting before people have a visit the ER or the hospital and reduce their cost of care.

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United Health Care Leads Dance Dance Revolution in Schools (video)

admin — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:02:19 +0000

UnitedHealthcare has an interesting initiative looking at getting kids more active in the schools. They have announced a new partnership with Konami where they’re bringing the popular DanceDance Revolution Classroom Edition into a number of schools. Brian Landwehr from United Healthcare says these are schools with which they already have an existing relationship, “that we help with their health curriculum, and what they do with childhood obesity and anything that they need to for their kids’ health at their school.”

“With this particular initiative, one of the things that – and the reason we’re here really is to talk about how healthcare can kind of reach out to people where they’re already are, what they’re already doing things. You’re already using mobile device. Kids are already playing video games. How do we actually take those existing activities, make them more for healthcare, make them more functional and manageable and actually convince people to do the things they need to do by engaging them at things that they already are doing. So these kids are already playing videogames and people are already trying to manage their healthcare costs.”

“What we’re doing here today is kind of saying, “How do we actually bring that in to existing setup and make it easier, make it more convenient, make it more fun and engaging to actually do the things you’re supposed to do anyway?” With the classroom edition, the great thing is that it actually ties directly into the way school curriculum are built. We worked with Konami and with the University of South Florida. They actually put together a professional curriculum around this that can be integrated directly into all the curriculum setup. The schools that we’re working with.”

“We already have some coordinators we work with. So that then gathers a bunch of data from the dancing that can go up to a portal that allows the educators, the kids, the parents, to actually see progress throughout the year. As each kid in the system gets a smart card at the beginning of the year that tracks their own personal data that they actually bring in. They can keep track of it in the system. So it allows them to see their progress throughout the year and get excited about it and their parents even get excited about it.”

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Dakim Brain Fitness Improves Memory, Mental Agility (video)

admin — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:22:43 +0000

Health Tech Weekly guest host Chris Montera here at CES 2013 joined by Dan from Dakim Brain Fitness.

Dakim Brain Fitness is the leader in development of brain fitness products to help boomers and seniors maintain their cognitive performance as they age. As you can in the booth here, baby boomers are looking forward to living a long life in being very productive and it’s very important for them to keep their brains sharp throughout the rest of their lives. The programs are clinically tested. They provide a broad range of cognitive stimulation activities designed to help people improve their memory, language abilities, attention, focus, and concentration. With continued use over time, to help protect them against cognitive decline.

They have several platforms. For the senior living industry, assisted living, et cetera, Dakim Brain Fitness has an integrated hardware and software solution. They also have software for health care professionals: neurologists, speech language pathologists, occupational therapists, et cetera. They’ll be introducing in March a web-based service for consumers.

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HAPIfork on Pre-order from Kickstarter

admin — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 10:09:02 +0000

HAPILABS, a company whose mission is to help individuals in the 21st century take control of their HAPIness, health and fitness through applications and mobile connected devices, today announced the start of their Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for the manufacturing and distribution of HAPIfork – the world’s first connected fork.

Check out the Health Tech Weekly review from CES 2013 of the HAPIfork.

HAPIfork transforms people’s relationship with food as it monitors how fast the user is eating and helps them slow down. Unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January, HAPIfork was the recipient of the CES Innovations Award, Health & Wellness category. The word quickly spread in over 50 countries globally culminating in hundreds of articles, blog posts, tweets, television and radio appearances as well as a fun shout out from The Colbert Report and Jay Leno.

“While our product is still a prototype, we’re thrilled by the global response so far,” says Fabrice Boutain, HAPILABS founder. “We believe this is affirmation of the growing consumer health awareness movement to gain better control of issues impacting weight and digestive issues as well as more serious issues such as diabetes and other chronic conditions.”

Pre-Order at KickStarter

Keeping in line with Kickstarter rewards at various funding levels, the HAPIfork will be offered as a perk for up to 2,500 people funding $89, and at the $99 level for anyone else who would like to be in the first commercial batch. In addition, the opportunity to be part of the beta testing program, receiving the HAPIfork at the earliest possible availability date, is offered at the $300 level perk. The campaign which starts today and runs until May 31, 2013, has a fundraising target of $100,000.

HAPIfork was designed by French entrepreneur and inventor Jacques Lépine whose idea was based on research which shows that by eating slower, people can improve the way they feel, improve their digestion and lose weight. HAPIfork aims to modify eating behavior by slowing down how fast people eat and being more present with when and how long it takes to eat, leading to an overall healthier state of being and living.

Bluetooth Enabled Health Tech

Unlike other health related tools, the HAPIfork is inconspicuous and appropriate for out of home use. The Bluetooth enabled smart fork also collects information for future analysis or monitoring in clinical settings. All data is transmitted to a ‘personalized online dashboard’ when the HAPIfork is connected to the users computer or mobile device making it easy to monitor eating habits and health improvement at home or on the road.

HAPIfork will be released in three colors (blue, green and pink) and will ship to Kickstarter funders first before the general public. HAPIfork comes with an color coordinated case making it easy to carry everywhere. The product will initially go on sale in the US and EU in the fourth quarter of this year.

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About—HAPILABS aims to help individuals in the 21st century take control of their HAPIness, health and fitness through applications and mobile connected devices. HAPIfork is part of suite of devices, applications and services from HAPILABS aimed at improving overall health, well-being and happiness. Products in development include the HAPIwatch to help people sleep better and the HAPItrack to help people stay in great shape. Offering elegant and simple solutions, HAPILABS helps people achieve a healthier and happier lifestyle.

Ergotron’s Sit-Stand Desk System Keeps You Healthy at Work

admin — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:36:53 +0000

Hi, Jamie Davis from Health Tech Weekly here at the Tech Podcast Network, Tpn.tv. I want to thank Ergotron for their gift of a rolling, sit-stand desk of my own to continue my own healthy work lifestyle. Check my video on the new desk and how I use it in my studio. This desk is a great addition to any healthy workspace and can improve your core strength and balance just by helping you work standing up for part of your day. Check it out!

You can find more about healthy initiatives and standing up while working at JustStand.org.

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Heartmath App Promotes Inner Balance (Video)

admin — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:26:29 +0000

Hi, Jamie Davis from Health Tech Weekly here at the Tech Podcast Network, Tpn.tv. We’re here at CES 2013. I’m here in the HeartMath booth and we’re talking with Catherine about “Inner Balance.” It’s a heart rate monitor, a skin monitor, whatever, that’s really helping me find my inner stress points, I guess, you’d say.

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Feedback Improves Inner Balance and Wellness

It’s helping you to restore your inner balance by measuring your heart rate variability. So when you’re stressed, your heart rate variability looks a little like earthquake tracing. So what we help you to do is synchronize your breathing, your heart and your brain together. You do that through empowering positive emotions and also this feedback.

The device itself is clipped to your ear and plugs into your smartphone or tablet. You got the ear sensor there. It’s very highly accurate, measuring heart rate variability and how smooth your heart rhythm is. It’s actually using a breath pacer. You see here, this will move in and out and you want to focus the attention in [the inner] of your heart and then you want to breathe – nice, slow deep breath – and you can use a breath pacer to do that. Feeling better already?

Improve Your Workouts and Active Lifestyle

It does make a difference. Now to really engage that and anchor that and you want to feel a positive emotion. So once you feel the positive emotion, it puts you in a coherent state. That coherent state is when you are at your best – mentally, physically and emotionally – and when you want to feel more love and appreciation during the day.

You get calm and aware. The top of the app shows your heart rate variability at the top and then as you get more and more coherent, it gives you a little indicator. You just change from red to blue and then you go from blue to green. So it’s green on the inside and really being able to feel positive all the time no matter what’s going on around you. Even at CES, you can have inner balance.

Integrated Web App for Tracking Available Now

The sensor itself is $99.00 and the app is free. Download from iTunes store and using on iPad, iPhone, iPod, Touch. So you can use on any of your I-accessories.

Stay Tuned for More From CES 2013

I’m your host Jamie Davis, the Podmedic. I’ll be back soon with more health technology for you. In the meantime, remember that improving health takes small, simple steps that over time all add up to a healthier you. Why don’t you take a healthier step today?

Remote Heart Rate Monitoring Changes Healthcare (Video)

admin — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 10:53:40 +0000

Hi, Jamie Davis from Health Tech Weekly. Here with the Tech Podcast Network at TPN.tv. This week, in another segment recorded at CES 2013, we bring you Randy from the Omron Booth and the Omron Remote Heartrate Monitor.

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Changing Habits, Improving Lifestyle

This is an amazing little heart rate monitor you wear around with you. It’s not that strap you wear on your chest anymore. It’s a strapless, continuous heart rate monitor. Instead of wearing a strap, you just wear it on your wrist. The optical sensors are reading your blood flow in the capillaries and calculating your heart rate for you.

You can wear it all day long. It’ll do eight hours of workout for the battery life. But if you wear it all day long and only turn it on for your heart rate during your workouts, it’ll last you over a week.

Improve Your Workouts and Active Lifestyle

You can make your workouts more effective. If you’re just walking and you’re not walking at a pace where you’re doing cardiac burning, you’re not getting all the benefit of that 30 minutes you may have. If you only have 30 minutes a day, make sure you walk hard.

The best way to do that is to check your heart rate. See that wet zone you’re in. Get in to the cardiac burning zone or the fat burning zone and you’ll have a much more effective workout then.

Integrated Web App for Tracking

It integrates with OmronFitness.com web application where you can upload your heart rate information, also upload the distance you walked, your calories burned. If you’re using one of our pedometers, it’ll have your steps. It all uploads to a graphic format so that you can see it at any time. So you can go back in history and look and see – “What did I do yesterday? The day before? Am I making progress in my goals?”

It is available now for $149.95 at Omronfitness.com store and soon after, in many major retailers and online stores.

Stay Tuned for More From CES 2013

HAPIfork Changes Bad Eating Habits (Video)

admin — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:06:26 +0000

Hi, Jamie Davis from Health Tech Weekly. Here with the Tech Podcast Network at TPN.tv. We are here with Philippe, co-founder of HAPILabs to talk about the HAPIFork.

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Changing Habits One Bite At A Time

The HAPIFork basically tracks three different types of data: the time you start eating and end eating, so therefore, the duration of your meal. Second is the number of fork servings you take during the meal. And even more important for us to track is the time interval in-between fork servings. For example, you eat, you wait a few seconds then you make the next bite. The idea is to help you increase this time interval to slow down the way you eat.

Subtle Vibration Tells You to Slow DownHow’s it work? You’re going to touch this, this part, and you’re going to feel a gentle vibration when you eat too fast. Let’s say, if the system says, “Okay, you should eat with time interval of six or seven seconds,” if you go under this, you will feel the gentle vibration. If you’re over this you won’t feel it, you won’t feel anything.

Vibration Slows You Down

It’s just the subtle signal that tells you, “Hey, I need to slow down my eating.” Of course, we know that slowing down our eating habits is going to really change our health habits because we eat less when we eat slowly.

By the way, it’s going to be released in April. It will come with an application for Android and iPhone, with an online dashboard to track all data for any of your meal. It’s going to come as well with a coaching program to take after your eating habits and a social game to eat with your family and to improve the way the children are eating as well. The HAPIfork will cost $99.00.