As the camera's memory Tool for Patients with Severe Amnesia

For patients who have diseases such as Amnesia forgotten memory or Alzheimer's disease, will be helped by an invention called the camera SenseCam.

"SenseCam help patients to remember things in bits and pieces though, it's better than creating a new memory" said Dr Emma Berry, a clinical neuropsychologist, who has been working with memory loss patients using this camera.

KabarIT launched from CNN, SenseCam is a small camera with low resolution (about 1 / 3 Mega Pixel). This camera uses a Fish Eye lens dengen shooting speed 2 frames per minute. This camera is used by patients to meningat events in everyday life. Despite not having a high kulaitas, the results obtained image is enough to be a key to encourage the brain to remember the events of everyday life.

This research program also works with Microsoft Research to conduct clinical trials.

This tool has been tested to a female patient who had severe amnesia disease. By using this camera, the patient regularly to see the pictures on the camera to trigger memory. Although fragmentary images that have been at SenseCam, the patient can retell the events that are not in this camera.

As the camera's memory Tool for Patients Patients with Severe Amnesia For patients who have diseases such as Amnesia forgotten memory or Alzheimer's disease, will be helped by an invention called the camera SenseCam. "SenseCam help patients to remember things in bits and pieces though, it's better than creating a new memory" said Dr Emma Berry, a clinical neuropsychologist, who has been working with memory loss patients using this camera. KabarIT launched from CNN, SenseCam is a small camera with low resolution (about 1 / 3 Mega Pixel). This camera uses a Fish Eye lens dengen shooting speed 2 frames per minute. This camera is used by patients to meningat events in everyday life. Despite not having a high kulaitas, the results obtained image is enough to be a key to encourage the brain to remember the events of everyday life. This research program also works with Microsoft Research to conduct clinical trials. This tool has been tested to a female patient who had severe amnesia disease. By using this camera, the patient regularly to see the pictures on the camera to trigger memory. Although fragmentary images that have been at SenseCam, the patient can retell the events that are not in this camera. This tool is also tested for Alzheimer's sufferers. Alzheimer's disease is a decrease in brain function is complex and progressive loss caused due to malnutrition in the brain. People with this disease usually have a tendency to have low memory can not even control herself. Results of research using SenseCam, has Alzheimer's clinical progress can tell the events of the past 3 months without using SenseCam again. This camera has a memory of 1GB, with low image quality, this camera can store 30,000 images files. Also included is the embedded sensors such as infra-red, hot, heart rate and blood pressure monitoring to record health data. Although not officially for sale, expected SenseCam sold for $ 800.

The technology that transformed the Air Being a Water Supply

Water is a necessity for every human life. But in some areas to obtain clean water is very difficult. People still get terkungking by way of the ground water or river that is sometimes not every area had it. In fact, the evaporated water carried by the wind and in every region there.

From where a researcher makes a device that can produce clean water that comes from the air. The findings will be dedicated to the regions around the world who have the problems in obtaining clean water

Cycling Enters the Electronic Age With a New Gear-Shifting System

The bicycle, one of the world’s most resolutely human-powered machines, will join the long list of devices that have switched from the manual to the electronic when a new gear system makes its debut this weekend at the Tour of California.

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Changing Gears Electronically

Although the battery-powered derailleur by Shimano promises to bring ease and accuracy to changing gears by enabling riders to shift with a light touch to two electronic switches, traditionalists worry that it may erode the basic tenets of the sport.

“People choose bicycles precisely because a bicycle’s motion requires only human effort, and nothing could be more simple, independent and autonomous,” Raymond Henry, a cycling historian in St. Etienne, France, wrote in an e-mail message. “Any source of external energy, however weak, runs counter to this philosophy.”

Whether the gear system becomes the next iPod and redefines bicycle technology or ends up as the sport’s version of the eight-track tape will hinge on a number of factors, the most obvious being performance, reliability and cost.

Two earlier attempts at electronic gear changing by a French company, Mavic, often malfunctioned in rain. Another company, Campagnolo, has delayed bringing its version to market because of the economic downturn.

Shimano’s version, known as the Dura-Ace Di2 7970, is being used by three professional teams competing in California: Columbia High Road, Garmin Slipstream and Rabobank. About 10 riders will race with the system even though they have used it on only one or two training rides after receiving them late this week.

Bob Stapleton, the owner and general manager of Columbia, said many of his riders had doubts about using bicycles that could literally run out of power. The Di2 system has no manual override if its battery goes dead. That event can be an irritation or a disaster, depending on the terrain and what gear ratio the bike is stuck in. Shimano estimates the battery will last for about 1,000 miles per charge.

“Their careers can be made on the results from one race,” Stapleton said of his riders. “So they prize reliability over everything.”

Stapleton, an experienced amateur cyclist, has used the Di2 system extensively and is a convert.

“I think every high-end bike within three years will have this, maybe sooner,” he said, adding that the system also eliminates much of the maintenance required by mechanical systems.

A full set of components with electronic gears will cost about $1,250 more than the newest mechanical version, which sells for about $2,750. Upgrading an existing Shimano system is expected to cost about $2,200. The system will fit onto nearly all racing bicycles.

Later this year, Giant, the largest bicycle manufacturer in the world, will offer a bike designed to use only electronic parts for about $14,000, which includes the cost of Di2. If consumers fancy the device, it will likely follow the pattern of other new electronics and drop significantly in price over time.

Electronic gear-shifting technology has spent a long time in development. Prototypes of Mavic’s first system, the Zap, made a cameo appearance at the 1992 Tour de France and the company introduced its second attempt, the Mektronic, in 1999.

For much of this decade, both Shimano, which dominates bicycle parts the way Microsoft dominates computer software, and its venerable Italian competitor Campagnolo occasionally tested prototype systems on the bikes of pro riders. More often than not, the prototypes were devoid of trademarks, presumably to limit embarrassment if results proved as unfortunate as the Zap.

The Campagnolo and Shimano systems share the basic design of current mechanical derailleurs. That is, a parallelogram that moves the chain back and forth and, in the rear, two spring-loaded wheels to keep the chain taut.

Two paddle-shaped electronic switches that sit behind the brake lever allow riders to shift gears. Tapping either paddle lightly in Di2 sends an electronic signal through a wire to a small motor inside the derailleur, moving the body and thus the chain by turning a worm gear. Even Devin Walton, a spokesman for Shimano, acknowledges that when it comes to the rear derailleur, there is little or no difference in shifting between the electronic and comparable mechanical offerings from the company.

The gains are move obvious, however, with the front derailleur, which moves the chain between the two large, toothed rings on the bicycle’s crank।

That is partly because the electronic front derailleur is able to make constant readjustments to reflect changes in the chain’s position caused by shifting with the more frequently used rear derailleur. That allows the electronic front derailleur to use a more efficient shifting mechanism, one that would drive riders to the point of distraction with fiddly readjustments on a mechanical system.

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Changing Gears Electronically

Campagnolo has faith in its electronic system and is waiting for an upturn in the economy before launching. “We’ve got extremely positive feedbacks concerning shifting quickness, precision and user friendliness,” Lerrj Piazza, a spokesman for Campagnolo, said.

Because cycling teams rely on sponsorship from companies like Shimano for their financial survival, several riders were reluctant to discuss their concerns about the system, which range from the prospect of battery failures to difficulty shifting gears using the small and very sensitive paddles while wearing gloves. But after a couple of training rides, George Hincapie of Columbia said he agreed with his team owner, Stapleton, about its merits.

“The shifting is amazing,” he said. “I was very impressed as soon as I tried it.”

The action of the electronic system is so effortless that, compared with mechanical levers, it leaves users feeling almost disconnected from the bike.

After trying the system, Jonathan Vaughters, the chief executive of Garmin Slipstream, anticipates that initially it will be most widely used on special bicycles used for time trials, races against the stopwatch, and triathlons. Vaughters, a former professional rider, believes that most of the two-second margin by which Chris Boardman won the opening time trial of the 1997 Tour de France was owed to his electronic Mavic derailleur. The device, which worked for that race’s 7.3 kilometers, allowed Boardman to maintain his aerodynamic position even while shifting.

If Di2 does prove to be reliable and is a success in the market, do not expect an automatic transmission next. Walton says that such a system, at least for racing bikes, would need to analyze a rider’s physical state and well as read his mind.

“There’s no way for the system to know when you’re about to sprint,” Walton said. “When you’re in competition, you have to be in control.”

In Search of a Good Doctor

By PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D.

Published: January 8, 2009

In response to my recent column on patients trusting doctors too much, several readers wrote in about the difficulty of finding or sifting through information on doctors and diseases. Many asked for suggestions, so a couple of weeks ago I contacted several nationally respected leaders in family medicine, pediatrics, internal medicine, oncology, surgery and anesthesia and asked them to share their advice on researching doctors and diseases.

Many of the doctors I spoke to or exchanged e-mail with made commonsense suggestions that were not unexpected. They urged patients to find out which doctors their closest friends really like, to ask a prospective doctor questions like how much experience he or she has with a specific condition or operation, and to make sure that as a patient you feel part of a shared decision-making process and comfortable saying how you feel, or that you don’t understand or that you respectfully disagree.

But many of the physicians also shared links to valuable Web sites, several of which I was unfamiliar with. All the sites are free to the public and accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. When I looked at these sites while writing this column, I became really excited as a patient about the amount of information available. For example, one site from the Department of Health and Human Services called Hospital Compare (www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov) allows you to select three hospitals within a 25-mile radius of your home. It also lets you compare a wide variety of quality indicators, like the percentage of heart failure patients who were given discharge instructions, the percentage of surgery patients given prophylactic antibiotics at the right time, or the percentage of hospitalized patients who felt that doctors or nurses “always” communicated well (the differences among hospitals surprised me).

And according to several of the doctors I spoke with, the amount of information available to patients will only increase in the future.

Throughout our conversations and e-mail exchanges, every one of the doctors stressed the importance of patients doing research and becoming an active part of the medical team. “This is a shared responsibility between the physician and the patient for the patient’s health,” said Dr. Ted Epperly, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Dr. Lisa V. Rubinstein, president of the Society of General Internal Medicine, said that sharing in decision-making “will help raise the quality of care given by any clinician, because it will sharpen the focus on the key decision points and help the clinician put a plan in place that the patient understands and agrees with.”

Here is a summary of these experts’ advice and the Web sites they use themselves and recommend to patients, friends and family.

Choosing a Doctor

All the doctors I contacted stressed the invaluable contribution of a good primary care doctor in helping patients identify specialists or other physicians. “I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for every patient to have a trustworthy primary care physician who can help them navigate our challenging, but potentially excellent, health care system,” said Dr. David T. Tayloe Jr., president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Primary care doctors can identify qualified subspecialists through local and national networks or professional organizations. “Even for a patient in a distant city,” Dr. Rubinstein said, “I can usually find a local respected colleague who knows someone in the general area.”

When a primary care doctor does not have a recommendation or when the patient does not have a primary care physician to turn to, Dr. Rubinstein advised identifying high quality medical groups or hospitals that “carefully monitor the quality of the clinicians affiliated with them” and that provide “decision support, continuous quality improvement and continuing education to keep their clinicians functioning well.”

Data on hospital and medical group quality is more readily available to the public than information on individual physicians, and Dr. Rubinstein offered several Web sites (see below) that patients can use.

One way to help assess the quality of individual physicians is to establish that a doctor is board certified, Dr. Epperly said. To become board certified, doctors must complete a full residency at an accredited training program, pass written and, depending on the specialty, oral examinations, and provide proof that she or he has experience with a defined set of clinical problems and technical procedures. However, cautioned Dr. Roger A. Moore, president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, “board certification is one indication, but it’s certainly no guarantee.”

Another way to get a sense of physician quality is to contact the national professional society for that doctor’s specialty.

“There is lots of good information at professional societies compared to years past,” said Dr. Thomas R. Russell, executive director of the American College of Surgeons. “On our Web site, for example, you can go look at a surgeon’s profile and see what they do.”

A breast cancer patient can, for example, find out if a recommended surgeon has a practice devoted exclusively to breast disease versus a more general practice. Or a patient with a colon mass can choose a surgeon who is not only board certified in colorectal surgery but also has a special interest in laparoscopy, or minimally invasive surgery.

Nabbing infections with technology

Sweeping Pa. law aims to reduce illnesses contracted during hospital स्ताय्स

HERSHEY, Pa. - At Hershey Medical Center, a sophisticated computer program serves as a watchdog for infection outbreaks.

With a few mouse clicks on a Web browser, the hospital's infection-control staffers can quickly generate reports with charts and graphs illustrating how many patients within a particular unit are infected, and which lab specimen contained the germs.

"It's more for us to look at the hospital as a whole and look for trends," said Dr। Kathleen Julian, an infection disease physician. "Is there a cluster of problems in this unit?"

Pennsylvania health officials view the nascent technology as a critical tool for helping hospitals reduce health care costs by identifying potential systemic infection-control problems sooner than is possible by reviewing paper records by hand — an approach some health professionals call "shoe-leather epidemiology."

Using traditional investigation methods, infection-control professionals must spend hours poring over patient charts, but limit the scope of their inquiry to areas of the hospital where infection outbreaks are most likely to occur. With electronic monitoring, hospitals can cast a wider net, using software that employs algorithms to do the heavy lifting of sorting through every single laboratory, pharmacy and X-ray report that is entered into the hospital's computer network.

Gov. Ed Rendell's administration is expecting more hospitals to adopt the technology under a sweeping 2007 state law designed to reduce infections contracted by patients during their hospital stays.

"It frees up your infection-control people from trying to find infections ... so they can get out on the floor and put systems in place so they don't happen again," said Ann Torregrossa, policy director for the Governor's Office of Health Care Reform.

Leader of ‘electronic surveillance’
Pennsylvania is the only state in the nation to include "electronic surveillance" — like the Hershey hospital's system — in its infection reporting laws, according to the Association of Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology।

Pennsylvania became one of the first states to mandate infection reporting by hospitals in 2003, and it was the first state to release public reports on infection rates in 2005.

Gov. Ed Rendell's administration championed the 2007 law as part of a broader health care reform agenda that includes reducing the cost of care. The administration has estimated that hospital-acquired infections add more than $3.5 billion annually to hospital bills in the state.

Monitoring infections has taken on greater urgency nationally with the emergence of antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureas, or MRSA.

Also, in October, the federal government began withholding Medicare reimbursements to hospitals for preventable errors, including urinary tract and vascular infections stemming from the improper use of catheters, as well as certain surgical site infections.

Healthy technology New guidelines agreed for the licensing of genetic inventions

Biotechnology and genetics research have been the subject of extensive investment by both the public and private sectors, with a growing impact on healthcare. Advances in medical genetics promise faster, better, diagnosis as well as a new generation of targeted therapies.

Major applications include diagnostic tests for certain types of cancer and for genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis and Huntington’s Disease, as well as therapies to treat diseases with a proven genetic component, including many metabolic diseases and types of cancer.

The possibilities are enormous, yet governments, patient groups and healthcare providers have become concerned about how certain genetic inventions have been licensed and exploited, particularly for diagnostic genetic services in human healthcare. A particular worry is that the patenting of genetic inventions and restrictive licensing of their use is reducing access to the benefits of the technology and discouraging new research.

In response to such concerns, the OECD member countries have adopted an agreed set of Guidelines for the Licensing of Genetic Inventions used in healthcare, in a move designed to help people benefit more widely from advances in genetics while making research and innovation faster and more efficient. By setting out principles and best practices for businesses, researchers and health systems that enter into license agreements for genetic inventions, the guidelines aim to encourage broad licensing and timely dissemination of biotechnological innovation.

The new guidelines were developed by a broad group of experts from diverse backgrounds and were subject to wide public consultation prior to adoption. They are not legally binding, but nevertheless represent an important political and moral commitment on the part of OECD countries to the future of healthcare. Governments have agreed to report back in four years time on progress in their diffusion and implementation of the guidelines.

The full text of the Guidelines for the Licensing of Genetic Inventions and additional information are available on the OECD web site at: www.oecd.org/sti/biotechnology/licensing.

Doctors use plane technology to make new heart

The prototype of a fully implantable artificial heart is seen at the biomedical firm Carmat in Suresnes, west of Paris. The prosthetic heart, which has been successfully tested on animals, is ready to be manufactured and could be tested on humans within 18 months to two years. (AP/Jacques Brinon)

In the race to create the world’s first fully functioning artificial heart, French scientists have turned to technology from satellites and airplanes.

The new heart could save millions of lives if it works in humans. So far, it has only been tested in animals. The device was unveiled at a press conference in Paris recently.

American companies have already produced artificial hearts, and scientists in Japan and South Korea are also working on versions.

But the French artificial heart is the first to be able to determine its patients’ needs and respond accordingly.

“It’s the same principle in the airplane as in the body,” said Patrick Coulombier, chief operating officer of Carmat, the heart’s manufacturer, a subsidiary of the European Aeronautics Defence and Space agency, makers of the Airbus plane.

Coulombier said the same tiny sensors that measure air pressure and altitude in an airplane or satellite are also in the artificial heart, detecting things like the heart’s pumping speed and the pressure on its walls.

That should allow the device to respond immediately if the patient needs more or less blood.

The heart is expected to cost about US$192,140. The most advanced U.S. artificial heart, made by the U.S. company Abiomed, sells for up $250,000.

Abiomed was aware of the French project but said it was ahead in the race.

“Our artificial heart has already been implanted in patients and is FDA-approved,” said Aimee Maillett, a com-pany spokeswoman. On average, Abiomed’s heart has extended patients’ lives by about five months.

Few details are available about the artificial hearts being developed in Japan and South Korea because the scientists have not published their work widely.

Previous artificial hearts have been unable to automatically vary their pumping speed. The French heart is also the most lifelike, with two pumps to send blood into the lungs and the rest of the body, just like a real heart. Past artificial hearts have only had one pump.

The heart was tested in sheep, but scientists did not test how long it would keep the animals alive. Laboratory experiments tested the heart in various scenarios, including, for example, when a hypothetical patient was exercising and suddenly needed more blood.

“This could be a bases-loaded home run if it works,” said Douglas Zipes, past president of the American College of Cardiology and professor of cardiology at Indiana University. Zipes was not linked to the French research.

The French model is made from natural materials including polymer and pig tissue, which have already been used in heart valves implanted into people.

Those have not caused any problems like rejection or clotting, commonly seen with artificial hearts or devices. That makes some doctors optimistic that a heart partially constructed from the same tissues could spare patients lifelong anti-rejection and anti-clotting medicines.

The artificial heart would initially be for patients who had suffered a massive heart attack or who had heart failure, but might eventually be used in patients were are not that sick. French doctors hope to start tests in humans in the next two years.

Heart disease is the world’s top killer. According to the American Heart Association, about 2,200 heart transplants were performed in the U.S. in 2006, and the waiting list is long.

While previous artificial hearts have mainly acted to buy time until a real heart becomes available, Dr. Ottavio Alfieri, a professor of cardiac surgery at Raffaele University Hospital in Milan and spokesman for the European Society of Cardiology, said the French heart might work in the longer term.

Experts warned that many past attempts to replace the human heart have failed.

“Virtually all devices that have been implanted in humans, no matter how well designed, have been associated with unforeseen complications,” said Tim Gardner, president of the American Heart Association.

In recent years, heart doctors have questioned the popularity of drug-coated stents used to prop open arteries. Several studies have linked the tiny mesh-metal stents to fatal blood clots, leading some doctors to scale back on their use.

With problems in using such tiny devices, some experts wonder about the impact of an entire artificial organ in the body. But Alfieri said that, since the artificial heart was essentially a pump, it would not be releasing any drugs like the drug-coated stents and might be less problematic.

Others were more wary.

“This is a high-risk area with a lot of problems,” said Karl Swedberg, a cardiologist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. He doubted the new artificial heart could be used to alleviate the shortage in donors, since it was very expensive and would still require a major operation.

“An artificial heart is an interesting idea, but we should focus on the established treatments we already have,” Swedberg said.