Category: Technology

Are Mobile Apps the Answer to Contemporary Health and Fitness Issue


”Image of a smartphone displaying a health app"
Photo by Wavebreakmedia – yayimages.com

In the United States, where obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes are the leading health concerns, the significance of staying fit can’t be overstated.

Our physical movements are shrinking by every passing day, which proportionally leads to a greater prevalence of the above-mentioned diseases. The conveniences of technology have made our lives virtually stationary. However, such is the paradox that technology can also help in compensating for the conveniences it provides to us.

Ender smartphones, the most noteworthy placard of modern technology. They offer us many different health applications designed to facilitate our lifestyles and encourage us to maintain our health.

On face value, these apps look great and might help people with their benefits. However, at this current time, no reliable records are available that adequately can provide us with results of using these health apps. Therefore, some experts contest that these health and fitness apps are not helpful and consider them counterproductive, but the developers and corporations that produce these apps may differ. 

In this article, we will try to play the role of advocate of both points of views and then you can decide about the benefits of health and fitness apps on your smartphones.

Benefits of Health Apps

The proponents of health apps bring up several points to prove the benefits of these mobile applications.

Many are Free and Easy to Use

Most of the software applications available for smartphone users are free of cost and for that reason, this is the first benefit put forward by the ones advocating them. Others may cost just a few dollars, while other applications can be acquired after you join a diet group or health club. With these, the apps will most likely be free, but you will have to pay a monthly or yearly fee to join; however, these will be the best health apps you can use since they will provide you with many tools and recording features not found in free or almost free apps.

As far as the low-cost ones are concerned, you can still benefit greatly as they will help you with your daily workout and provide you with fitness ideas that are otherwise only available to people who can spend money on fitness books and professional consultancy.

All these programs have easy-to-use interfaces, which is different from the free-floating information available on the Internet. This feature of customization makes these health apps handy for every individual user according to his/her level of fitness and health condition.

Woman doing yoga

 

They Have Unlimited Scope

Many health and fitness apps are not limited to any particular niche and health regimen. This feature makes them very universal in their reach. For instance, there are specific programs only designed to guide and help you with everyday running and then there are others that can facilitate your yoga routine.

This flexibility of use definitely makes them popular among people with a preference for different fitness regimens. From a virtual gym to a yoga studio, these health mobile apps can come handy to implement different physical fitness routines.

Helps in Maintaining Diet Routines

To stay fit, maintaining a healthy diet is as important as a physical fitness routine and sometimes even more and there are apps that address this aspect. The nutritional information regarding your meals can be furnished and there are some which can break down the food you ingest into its nutritional components and guide you in tracking your weight loss mission. Some of these programs are very professional; such as, Weight Watchers, which provides you with powerful software where you can actually point the phone at a food item’s barcode and acquire the necessary information you need to process your diet with..

Heart Rate Variability Reading

Provide Best Tracking Mechanism

Have you completed your 10,000 steps today? How often have you heard that? With the help of navigation, mobile apps can perform a fairly accurate tracking of your fitness routine. They can also show you the number of calories burned during the activity. Moreover, you can schedule a complete fitness plan, track it and find your success ratio. There are even apps that can monitor your heart rate. 

Downsides of Health Apps

Many people blame these mobile apps for being unproductive and harmful to the efforts of achieving fitness goals. Let’s have a look at the most common critiques on these virtual health applications.

Lack of Precision

Health apps are often criticized for their lack of precision and inaccurate information and this criticism is not uncalled for. For instance, some researchers most of the apps that calculate heart rate, blood pressure and stress levels use sensors that are not manufactured and assembled to find out these measurements. They say this information is unproven, unreliable and therefore can’t be used for any inference.

No Involvement of a Healthcare Expert

The exclusion of healthcare professionals is a USP of many mobile apps, but this same feature is also criticized because unaided and unassisted use of health regimen can prove to be counterproductive.

Lack of Regulation

Another issue which doubts the benefits of health apps is the lack of regulation associated with them. Clinics, physical fitness centers, and physicians, in general, have to comply with the regulatory policies of the FDA, HIPAA, and other regulatory agencies. But mobile apps are not required to undergo that strict and necessary checklist, which makes their use untrustworthy. Developers are not liable if anything goes wrong by acting upon the advisory information provided by these apps.

According to a research article published in the Journal of the American Society of Hypertension, only three percent of the top 100 apps used to gauge blood pressure are designed by different healthcare agencies and rest of them are developed by coding engineers and developers. This free flow of health apps without any regulations is only giving rise to more inaccurate medical data.

Compromise of Confidentiality

Doctor-patient confidentiality is an important part of healthcare practices. It is imperative to maintain them for the peace of mind of patients. But unfortunately, health apps are not bound to maintain any such thing. Even though many health apps clearly mention that they maintain complete confidentiality of the user’s personal information, but the opposite has been found to be true on certain occasions.

As per research study conducted by an NGO, nearly two-thirds of 43 analyzed health apps leaked the personal details in the form of dates of birth and other medical information.

From the above discussion, it can easily be deduced that the use of mobile health apps can be beneficial sometimes. But relying too much on them and excluding professional counsel can also make them perilous with their use.

Research these health applications before you download. One good way to determine how good they are is to read their reviews. For the ones where you have to join a club or health organization, you will most likely be using a much more reliable health program; hence the saying:“You get what you pay for!”

 

The Use of Virtual Reality in Physical Therapy

Virtual
Photo by Wavebreakmedia – yayimages.com

Virtual Reality (VR) has become common recreation in the arts and movies and now is successfully being implemented in the fields of medicine and psychology. This technology has also demonstrated potential in effective physical rehabilitation intervention. It can help physically handicapped individuals engage in activities via the VR’s safe environment.  

Although it is in its fetal stages, the use of VR has been increasing in facilities that provide physical therapies. The technology has proven successfully effective in patient rehabilitation techniques. In this article, we will look at how VR technology is helping to improve patient therapy in clinical settings.  

VR Technology and Advanced Patient Care

VR technology offers a virtual environment that is different from video screens. The main feature of the VR is physical interaction. The individual can interact with virtual objects within the virtual environment.  This interaction takes place through the use of pointers, joystick, or wearable mounted devices (WMD).

In some systems, additional aids, such as a body part (a hand or a leg) is displayed and help in interaction with the virtual environment. The viewpoint on the screen can be controlled by the individual through the VR application. Some of them also show a third person view of the individual that results in greater engagement with the virtual environment.  

According to Levac, a physical therapy professor at the Bouvé College of Health Sciences, the VR technology can help in movements of body parts that have been damaged by diseases or injured in an accident. The professor says that a number of challenging VR tasks are presented to the individuals that motivate them to improve. The virtual tasks are neither too difficult that makes them frustrated nor easy that makes them lose interest in the therapy.  

VR has been used for quite some time in physical rehabilitations. But the real question is, ‘have they been effective in providing the results?’

A study that was published last year in the American Physical Therapy Journal had examined findings of 13 different studies that measured stability and gain improvements of stroke patients using VR technology. A number of VR applications were evaluated including one that involved individuals walking on a treadmill while wearing a VR headset. The VR applications simulated real world trials, track, and sidewalk and contained virtual obstacles.  

The researchers found that most of the studies had found significant improvements in balance and gait using the VR applications. The improvements were found to be even more profound when they were combined with traditional physical therapy practices.  

Conclusion

VR gadgets are being successfully adopted in the clinical settings to aid in physical rehabilitation. The gadget helps in creating patient-specific physical training. The best thing about VR gadgets is that they allow variability in the training, which helps to maintain motivation levels of the individuals.

Whether the patient has suffered from amputation, joint replacement, arthritis, bone injuries, disc disease, and osteoporosis, VR physical therapy help in greatly accelerating the recovery process.  

A Close Look at Verily Life’s Health Tracking Watch

Verily Life’s Health Tracking Watch
Verily Life’s Health Tracking Watch

We are living in an era where unparalleled medical technological advancements have helped in improving the quality of lives of billions of people all over the world. Continuous advancements are being made that help to better understand the various diseases that still perplex us and to subsequently find their cure.

In this respect, Verily Life – a tech company owned by Google’s parent organization Alphabet—is at the forefront of bringing together technology and health care research in order to gain greater insights so that people can enjoy healthier lives.

Verily Life has recently developed a digital watch that tracks health data and has been designed specifically for use in clinical research.

Insights into the Digital Health Watch

The digital health watch developed by Verily Life is known simply as Study Watch. The watch represents a revolutionary new technology that can help medical researchers in gaining better a understanding of different diseases. The watch can detect sound and ambient light that allows it to measure electrodermal activity and heart rate. Also, the watch can measure movement and produce accurate ECG readings that can help reveal latent heart problems.

The watch looks similar to a wrist watch and features an e-ink type display. According to Verily Life, the watch can continuously and unobtrusively collect data from the study participants. Following are some of the key features of the digital heart watch:

  • Multiple environmental and physiological sensors
  • A powerful internal processor that can easily handle real time algorithms
  • Large internal storage that can allow the watch to store about a week’s worth of raw data
  • Robust firmware that supports user interface upgrades, new  algorithms, and over-the-air updates
  • Always-on display screen that shows the current time, date, and month

For the moment, Verily Life has not put the digital watch up for sale, but the team hopes that it will be used in large scale research projects in the future. Presently, the company will use the watch in conducting its own clinical research. The company’s baseline study aims to monitor about 10,000 individuals over the next five years. The research data will form the baseline of health data that can help in better comprehension of diseases. It is an ambitious project that includes tracking of glucose levels, heart attacks, cancer activities and much more.

Verily Life is not the only company that is working on a health watch that can measure vital statistics of the patients. Nokia that owns Whithings and Apple are both working on a similar health watches that can assist clinical research studies. These watches will probably not be put on sale for the public. Instead, they will be utilized in large research projects such as the Radboud University’s Personalized Parkinson’s Project and many others. It is hoped that the watches will play a pivotal role in introducing breakthrough treatments for various currently incurable diseases in the future.

How AI Can Help in Improving Senior Health Care


Old Woman Senior CitizenIn the course of Mr. Fensterman’s continued endeavors to assist our seniors and the nursing homes he is affiliated with, it is important that we keep our audience up to date on the latest technology in senior health care. And in this 21st century, medical technology is advancing at  an unexpected rate.

Enter AI – Artificial Intelligence, and in health care, visions of robots diagnosing and treating patients on-site and from afar are not science fiction anymore. While advancements are consistently being made in the field of robotics, specifically, in the development of intelligent robots for elderly care, this technology is currently not affordable or practical, but prepare for that to change in the near future.

Far from a glamorous vision of a robot taking care of a patient, AI today involves a lot of computer coding that can help analyze data and recommend treatment options. According to Joseph Ferro – CTO of a health care tech company Mavens, AI has the potential to help senior individuals that live alone to better take care of themselves and live longer lives.

AI Technologies Promoting Better Senior Health Care

Robot touching computer screen
3D rendering 3D illustration medical artificial intelligence robot working in future hospital 

The number of senior individuals is projected to double from nearly 50 million today to about 100 million in the next five decades. While the population of elderly individuals is increasing, the amount of senior health care centers remains stagnant. This is where AI can help as it can ensure that seniors who live home alone are able to look after themselves without the need for a third (human) party.  

Artificial intelligence algorithms can be used to help people make the necessary changes required to reduce the risk and treat obesity, diabetes, and hypertension, to mention a few. It can ‘coach’ the individual to adopt healthy habits that reduce the risk of developing diseases, or lower the severity of the symptoms of existing diseases.

What’s more, smart sensors controlled by AI algorithms can monitor vital health statistics. In case any aberration is detected in the person’s vital signs, the system can be programmed to automatically call the nearest health care professional.

Experts say that AI can perform manual tasks that are carried on by health care nurses. It can analyze the patient data and take appropriate actions. The companies that develop AI algorithms capture the inputs of various health care experts. This results in a holistic health care treatment at an affordable cost for the individual.  

The traditional health care costs amount to thousands of dollars for the individuals. Also, many senior individuals have to travel to clinics or the doctor’s office for getting treatment which can be a great inconvenience to them, but new technologies are making it easier to communicate with their medical professional, and with an AI program, seniors will be provided the required health care in their own home and also at a fraction of a cost. The cost savings of the AI will greatly help in reducing the overall costs of senior health care services.  

Bottom Line

When it comes to radical health care, AI is certainly an important technology. It has the potential to greatly reduce senior health care costs and make elderly care more convenient.  

In the near future, great advancements are expected in the real of artificial intelligence and a lot of it is related to eldercare. Whether it’s keeping senior individuals healthy through preventive care, mobile communication, or informing medical personnel about emergencies, the impact of AI technology will be far-reaching.    

Genomics and the Future of Health Care

Medical Technology
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Genomics is an emerging field of genetics that deals with analysis and sequencing of the individual’s’ genome. A genome contains the entire genetic coding in the form of DNA. Professionals in genomics perform genetic mapping to find out the complete DNA sequences and better understand the diseases.

The genomic information can help in providing improved clinical care. Better understanding of the disease through genetic mapping can also lead to improved health outcomes and therapeutic decision making capabilities.  

While genomics is a relatively new field to the public, innovations in the field had started to make waves  over two decades ago when scientists developed and improved genetic sequencing techniques. The human genome project was first started in 1990 with the aim of mapping all the genes (about 25,000) in a human genome.

Genomics: Today and Beyond

Today, the field of genomics has advanced to a great degree. Complete genomes of a number of deadly diseases including cancer have been sequenced. The genomic data can help in finding improved treatment of the different diseases including malignant tumor, lung cancer and influenza.

Access to Personalized Genomics

Today, anyone that wants to gain better understanding to one’s health can gain access to the personal genomic data. The cost of personalized genomics is affordable that is likely to fall in the future due to development of more advanced sequencing technologies such as the Whole genome sequencing (WGS).  

Recently, a company named Veritas has launched the My Genome project that allows individuals to sequence the entire genome for just $999. Access to the personal genome can pave way for more improved personalized health care. It will help in the treatment of diseases that are not treated using conventional drugs.

Advanced Genomic AI Algorithms

Data provided by genomics is nothing unless they are used for deep learning of the diseases. A number of new companies are pushing the boundaries with AI genomic technologies such as iCarbon X and Deep Genomics. These programs make use of complex AI coding for better knowledge of the human genetic sequence. While it may take some time for this type of analysis to become mainstream in clinical research, the fusion of AI and genomics provide great opportunities for breakthrough medical advancements.

Cloud Based Genome Sequencing Service

Advancements are also being made in cloud based genome sequencing technology that can help research firms located in different parts of the world collaborate in bioinformatic genomics. Some of the companies that are developing cloud genomic application based on software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform include Intel, Cloudera, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM.  

Using the knowledge of a person’s genome to diagnose and treat health problems is a revolutionary medical practice that is making waves in the field. The breakthroughs in the field will continue to open up a large number of opportunities for treatment of untreatable diseases.  A tidal wave of genomic testing and sequencing information will continue to both answer questions about medical conditions, and raise new ones.  

Wearable Sensors Can Help in Diagnosing Disease

The innovation in electronic health care is changing the way doctors monitor and diagnose diseases. A number of innovative biomedical devices have been introduced that extends the capabilities of the medical staff in diagnosing diseases.

One the technological innovations in the health care system include smart wearable sensors that are capable of pre-operative monitoring. With the advent of miniature circuit chips, microcontroller functionality and wireless data transmission, wearable sensors are now a common health care community that people can wear on their wrists or around their neck. The smart sensors can monitor skin temperature, heart rate, blood glucose levels and other variables that can determine what is going on inside a person’s body.

Smartwatch
Devices such as the smartwatch can monitor many vital signals when attached to a person’s wrist

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine had found that the smart sensors are particularly effective in diagnosing the onset of infection, insulin resistance, and inflammation. The research team had examined nearly 2 billion measures from about 60 people. They had also collected continuous data from the wearable biosensors of the participants and compared them with the laboratory tests of the blood chemistry and other traditional measures.

The participants had used commercially available sensors that displayed data on heart rate, weight, blood oxygen level, skin temperature, calories expended and even exposure to X-rays and gamma rays. The devices had collected the data during different activities including walking, sleeping, running, biking, and others.

According to one of the researchers, Eric Topol, who is also a professor of Genomics at the Scripps Research Institute, the data collected by the smart wearable devices were impressive. A lot of sensors are available in the market that can collect a large range of variables related to the individual’s health.

The study found that the smart devices can accurately track deviation from the base values. Some of the devices can also link the aberrations to specific environmental health disorders. The devices can examine distinct patterns of deviations and then correlate them with a health disorder. Algorithm of the devices can detect the changes in patterns that greatly help in diagnosing and treating the illnesses.

At the moment, a number of companies produce these sensors. Some of the sensors are also being produced for detecting disorders in the animals. The devices with a few modifications can accurately be used in detecting anomalies in the animal’s health.

The innovative smart wearable devices have made possible precision livestock farming techniques. By using the smart sensors, farmers can accurately monitor the health of the animals. The devices can help in determining whether the animals are afflicted with diseases. This can ensure that the meat or dairy products that are sold for human consumption are perfectly safe for consumption.

The smart devices can sense saliva, sweat, and analyze micro-fluids. The biosensors and wearable devices that are available in the market can be integrated to create an efficient tracking system that can display the health status in real time. This can offer a timely diagnosis of illnesses that can ultimately decrease the economic losses involved in medical treatment.

Robotic Assistance For Nurses

The number of robots in the workforce is on the rise with no signs of slowing down and in the healthcare field, medical robotics are already being used. The da Vinci machine is used in a wide variety of fields to perform surgeries with precision. The tiny origami robot comes in a capsule, which dissolves when swallowed. It is then controlled by a technician to patch up wounds in the stomach lining or remove foreign objects. The benefits of robotics are plenty: these machines show no bias, have low error rates, and never get tired or need food.

Robot in Medical Technology
A robotic arm used in high-throughput screening

Nursing and engineering students at Duke University have recently created a robotic nurse assistant funded by the National Science Foundation. Tele-Robotic Intelligent Nursing Assistant (TRINA) is currently able to bring a patient a bowl, cup, pills, and a stethoscope. When admitted to a hospital, a patient will spend most of his/her time with a nurse; with many hospitals being understaffed and nurses overworked, TRINA might be what the medical field desperately needs.

Very shortly, TRINA will be able to perform even more tasks, such as caring for patients suffering from highly infectious diseases, taking vital signs, collecting and testing fluids, and distributing medication. TRINA is not a standalone robot, it has to be controlled by an operator. The goal of TRINA and other healthcare robots is not to replace nurses and medical professionals, but to limit their exposure to infectious diseases and to better aid busy doctors and nurses. The National Science Foundation is also funding the development of a new robot that will help nurses lift patients as well as heavy objects.

Robot touching computer screen
3D rendering 3D illustration of a medical artificial intelligence robot working in a future hospital

Companion robots can also help patients by alleviating loneliness and treating mental health issues. When a nurse is overworked and unavailable to a patient, friendly companion robots can keep patients from feeling lonely by enabling them to make calls, play games, take pictures, and text.

These social robots, such as Buddy, Pepper, and Paro, can also read emotions and interact accordingly, providing companionship and entertainment. From hospital settings to nursing homes, these companion robots can alleviate stress for busy nurses.

Why the Healthcare System Should Embrace Telemedicine

The 21st century is experiencing marvels in technological advancements and the medical industry is no exception. To date, one of the most promising advances is telemedicine.

Telemedicine or Telehealth refers to the process of health care experts being able to perform diagnosis and/or treatments of patients who are not physically located at the medical facility’s office. Rather, it is done through the use of remote communication. The process involves a connection from a physician or medical professional to a patient via a secure video feed over the Internet. The patient may be a few blocks away, a few miles away or even hundreds of miles away. 

If managed correctly, the benefits can be plentiful; such as a patient doesn’t have to travel to the doctor’s office, which can be advantageous when the individual is not feeling well enough to travel. The person can be provided with a much quicker diagnosis and at times, a life-saving suggestion from the other side of the world may need to be provided. 

Telemedicine allows for one of the most apt responses and attention a patient can get, especially when there are fewer medical practitioners at hand or no medical team within reach. Sometimes, it is also referred to as absentia care and in a recent survey by the Medical Society of the State of New York on telemedicine, the results were significant. Over 78% of doctors surveyed said they are interested in pursuing this technology. Let’s delve in more detail about how the advantages of telemedicine can bring a revolution in the healthcare industry:

Telemedicine Reduces Expenses:

Health is important and cannot be ignored in any case; however, it is the expensive medicines and other health care expenses that make people hesitate in paying attention to their health. Telemedicine acknowledges this issue and in a way, provides a solution by being able to provide better and quality healthcare. Telemedicine also reduces expenses by eliminating the transport expenses associated with doctors, urgent care and hospital visits, as well as avoiding whole workdays off from work.

Telemedicine Consultant
Telemedicine can be advantageous in many ways

Brings Healthcare to the Rural Areas Around the World:

Remote places around the world are not so fortunate to have the luxury of excellent medical care that the people of urban areas have. Telemedicine is beneficial because it is making it possible for the rural population to have the same level of expertise in medical care as that of an urban area.

Progress in Medical Researches:

When great minds come together, they create something magical. Telemedicine is making this possible too. When the best and most expert practitioners from around the world communicate more frequently, take suggestions, give advice and see results, it allows them to establish better ways of providing health care.

An Option for All:

A majority of working-class people or sometimes, even the most career-oriented people, find it difficult to miss a workday or two or to wait for hours in the doctor’s office while their children are with a babysitter. Telemedicine allows people to have their independence. People can deal with their health and care without making them appear to be a glitch in their everyday routines. Sometimes, a health problem even forces families to move to a different state, whether they like it or not. However, with Telemedicine, such an inconvenience can be avoided.

Better Chances of Recovery:

It’s one thing when only doctors and parents are worried about someone’s health care and an entirely different matter when a person is too invested in their own proper health-related issues. It increases the chances of recovery and lowers the cost. With telemedicine, a patient him/herself has to take care of their virtual appointments and has to contact their doctors or nurses at times of a sudden emergency. With more patient engagement, the chances of healing increase tenfold. 

So, now that we know how telemedicine can bring a revolutionary change in the world of medical care, the only thing preventing it is a lack of awareness and the establishment of proper systems in place.

How Technology is Helping the Medical Industry

2023 Update – Bionic Arm a Success!

Attaching bionic limbs is not anything new, but now, for the first time in history, a bionic hand has been attached to a woman from Sweden that integrates with the nervous system so that not only can she perform tasks that weren’t feasible before, but she also can feel sensations in her hand.

And now, with the advancements of AI, the hopes for even greater medical achievements will be coming in the near future!

The Emergence of Healthcare Technology

From food to education and from business to medicine, everything is being affected by the rapid growth in technology and it is accelerating at a rate never seen before. With all these advancements, nursing, and healthcare are at the top of the list.

All this technology has not only allowed doctors and nurses to perform their duties more effectively, but it has also made procedures more efficient and less painful for patients. Treatment is better, recovery is faster, and life-saving situations have increased significantly.

Medical Technology
Pixaby Free Image

Let’s discover the medical technologies that are helping nurses and medical practitioners perform their jobs:

Communications:

Paper medical charts are now a thing of the past. A patient’s medical files must follow HIPAA confidentiality laws to avoid information from being compromised. Electronic Health Records (EHR) allow this medical information to be kept digitally and shared protectively with doctors and patients in a highly secure manner. Not only are patient files more protected, but information can be electronically transmitted to other medical professionals in an instant, as well as prescriptions are promptly transferred to pharmacists. All is done via the Internet in an encrypted and secure fashion.

Wearable Tech:

A recent innovation. Wearable tech is allowing people to keep track of their fitness and health and healthcare facilities can conduct their monitoring and treatment more accurately. These devices differ in their functions ranging from heart monitors, health monitors, fitness trackers, GPS trackers, and emergency response callers.

A digital healthcare solutions company in Australia is in the process of developing a smartphone app that can diagnose respiratory conditions with the phone’s microphone, acting as a stethoscope. The ResAppDx app applies artificial intelligence algorithms to the sounds, which identify potential respiratory conditions, including pneumonia, asthma, bronchiolitis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Telehealth:

Telehealth/telemedicine refers to the delivery of clinical services by trained medical personnel to patients remotely. Residents of most rural areas who have been struggling with physically reaching medical facilities can benefit greatly from this technology. Many who have lost many lives due to lack of immediate medical attention can now have access to doctors, at least virtually, until physical health care services can arrive.

But it is not just remote areas that can benefit. Handled properly, many people in suburbia and cities can be helped via this technology and it is being used more and more. It may not seem much, but talking to a doctor virtually can help handle many medical situations, at least for the time being or until help arrives.

A recent survey by the Medical Society of the State of New York was conducted regarding telemedicine and the results are impressive.

There is much advocacy for telehealth as well. New York recently joined 28 states plus the District of Columbia in adopting a telemedicine/telehealth reimbursement parity law (the “Telehealth Law”). The new Telehealth Law became effective on January 1, 2016, and made several
significant changes to the New York Public Health Law and
the New York Insurance Law.

Doctor’s Networking:

What do doctors do when they are faced with a medical dilemma and might need a second, third, or even fourth opinion? They ask for advice from other experts. However, while they take their time to contact the other doctor, a patient might be fighting for his or her life. Fortunately, with advancements in technology, doctor’s networking has become strong and quick. Getting answers in minutes or even getting visual assistance by a video call has become a possibility.

Proper Medications:

Errors in medicine intake are not something new or unheard of. Whether it is a mistake on the part of the patient or a distracted medical employee, it happens, and it happens frequently. Thanks to technology such as automatic medication reminders, mistakes like these can now be avoided. These devices help the patients and healthcare staff to ensure timely intake of prescriptions and the right ones with a limited percentage of error.

Robotics and Miniaturization:

The accomplishments of this technology are impressive and its functionality is providing major transformations in the medical field, such as the Colon Pill. In addition to medical miniaturization, robotics is allowing patients to forego painful and sometimes wrongful diagnoses and procedures. Diagnosis acquired from this type of automation can be precise and very accurate.

See our infographic on The Impact of Technology on Health Care

Medical breakthroughs That are Changing the World

Diseases, especially those that affect one’s physical abilities to get around and prevent us from living our lives in a normal fashion can have a dramatic effect on their entire well-being. In fact, some illnesses hamper the ability of people to manage just the basic things in life, such as eating by themselves and walking without assistance of any kind. Fortunately, there have been some major medical breakthroughs in recent times. By allowing them to live their life to the fullest, these medical breakthroughs are changing the game for many. What are these medical breakthroughs?

Pill Cam Colon

Imagine a pill that you can swallow with a camera that can view the entire colon, without sedation or radiation. This is not science fiction. This is a scientific fact. The Israeli company Given Imaging has developed such a device that has been successfully tested and is currently being used for potential colon cancer patients.

BrainGate’s Brain Sensor

In mid-2015, BrainGate, a technology company, implanted a brain sensor into the brain of a woman who had been paralyzed for the past fifteen years. After the brain sensor was implanted, the woman was able to drink coffee without any assistance. So how does this brain technology work? BrainGate’s cognitive apparatus records electrical signals after mining the neurons of brain activity. Once this is done, the sensor translates the signals into movement commands.

Diagnosis of Cancer via Dogs

This may sound a little absurd, but research has proven dogs can naturally diagnose cancer. Recently, four dogs including two German shepherds, an Australian shepherd, and a Labrador retriever were tested by a group of German scientists. In order to identify the presence of lung cancer in the surveyed individuals, each dog was made to sniff the breath of over two hundred patients.

The success to failure ratio was 71:29. Furthermore, the dogs were asked to identify the presence of breast cancer, colon cancer and bladder cancer in the surveyed individuals. Once again, the dogs had an over 70% success ratio. Therefore, there was enough evidence for the German scientists to conclude that dogs can naturally diagnose cancer.

Cardiac Output Monitor

Another invention from Israel that is used for the prevention of sepsis, a blood infection that is responsible for one in four hospital deaths and is listed as one of the top 10 causes of death in the United States.

Cheetah Medical uses sensors to monitor the movement of blood from the heart to the body’s organs which enables medical professionals to more efficiently diagnose and treat patients.

Technology for Migraine Pain

Today, technology is putting forth new ways of relieving headaches including severe headaches such as migraines. For many people, drugs do not do the job. Therefore, there is a growing need for alternative ways.

Fortunately, the FDA has taken the demands of migraine patients into consideration and has approved two migraine gadgets: Cefaly and SpringTMS. Cefaly is worn across the forehead for about twenty minutes each day while SpringTMS is a gadget held at the back of the head where the pain exists. Both these gadgets significantly relieve migraine pain.

There you have it—the three major medical breakthroughs that are changing the lives of many people. However, there are many other medical breakthroughs that are helping people to overcome their diseases.