Millions of people with diabetes are forced to endure multiple finger pricks daily — an unpleasant practice that may impede compliance, and whose reliability is operator-dependent.
Now, Dr. Paul Barone and Dr. Michael Strano at the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering are developing a new approach to glucose monitoring.
Building on work they previously published in ACS Nano, the new technology employs a nanoparticle “tattoo” as a glucose sensor, which can then be continuously monitored by a device on the surface of the body. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
It’s time for the 6th annual Games for Health conference. The conference, in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, provides a forum for experts in the fields of video games, healthcare, and science to come together and share the latest and greatest in health-related video game news and research.
From their promotional pamphlet:
Because digital games can actively engage and challenge people of all ages, they have the ability to help individuals manage chronic illnesses, support physical rehabilitation, pursue wellness goals and contribute to changes in health behaviors. Public health leaders, doctors and nurses, rehabilitation specialists, emergency first responders and other health professionals are also using games and game technologies to advance their skills and enhance how they deliver care and services. Games are even beginning to mine the wisdom of the crowds to forge critical new discoveries in biology and genomics.
The acceptance of games as a valuable health management and training method, the popular success of consoles like the Nintendo Wii, and the growth of smartphone game applications indicate that there is tremendous potential for continuing to move health and behavior change activities beyond clinical settings and the classroom and into consumers’ home, work, social and recreational spaces.
We’ll be reporting throughout the event (May 25-27). Stay tuned for info on the PS3 Move, a Wii laparoscopic trainer, and more.
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
Finally men everywhere might have a birth control option that won’t rob them of the joys of living.
Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill may have discovered a cheap, convenient and noninvasive method of male birth control — ultrasound. The scientists believe that a single treatment can provide up to six months of infertility that is reversible.
The team has received a $100,000 Grand Challenges Explorations grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for their work. If the project pans out, this could have an incredible impact on global health. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
After years of trauma center releases focusing on surgery (some of which we’ve written about here), this is the first offering that lets gamers delve into emergency and pre-hospital care.
Of course, the game runs counter to standard teachings (in one demo video we saw a practitioner abandon her airway procedures to tend to an abdominal wound) and is at least as unrealistic as prior offerings — but then again if we wanted more accuracy, we could just go to work…
It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…
I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…
I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…
When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…
I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…
Millions of people with diabetes are forced to endure multiple finger pricks daily — an unpleasant practice that may impede compliance, and whose reliability is operator-dependent.
It’s time for the 6th annual 
Finally men everywhere might have a birth control option that won’t rob them of the 
This is shaping up to be a big week for the Wii in medicine — not only is the 
