chronic-illness

Next: Monitoring the body’s electrical signalling to enhance brain health

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Researchers are seek­ing to record and inter­pret the body’s elec­tri­cal sig­nals. Pic­ture: ZEISS Microscopy/Flickr

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READING THE BODY’S ELECTRICAL SIGNALS TO TREAT ILLNESS (Uni­ver­si­ty of Melbourne):

“Chem­i­cal elec­tric­i­ty is how we move, think, and remember.

And increas­ing­ly, as tech­nol­o­gy minia­turis­es and com­put­er pow­er mul­ti­plies, it’s how we are treat­ing chron­ic illness.

Since the ful­ly implantable pace­mak­er was devel­oped in the 1950s to keep a patient’s heart beat­ing in rhythm using elec­tri­cal impuls­es, engi­neers have now gone on to devel­op devices that can be implant­ed direct­ly in the brain, under the scalp, or even inside blood ves­sels to treat dis­eases and dis­or­ders like Parkinson’s and epilep­sy, as well as men­tal ill­ness­es and paralysis.

But Pro­fes­sor David Gray­den in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Melbourne’s Depart­ment of Bio­med­ical Engi­neer­ing is aim­ing to go fur­ther [Read more…] about Next: Mon­i­tor­ing the body’s elec­tri­cal sig­nalling to enhance brain health

Dr. Albert Kwon, CEO of Brainnovations Winner AUGMENTx, wants to harness Augmented Reality to significantly ease access to Neurological Rehabilitation Therapies

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Albert, what sur­prised you the most from the Judges’ ques­tions and feed­back dur­ing the Brain­no­va­tions Pitch Contest?

It was a pleas­ant sur­prise to receive so many votes and such great feed­back, which solid­i­fied my con­vic­tion that there is a great need to cre­ate new ther­a­py options for stroke patients and oth­er neu­ro­log­i­cal injuries, espe­cial­ly giv­en our aging pop­u­la­tion.  Med­ical sys­tems world­wide will strug­gle to han­dle the grow­ing bur­den of chron­ic ill­ness­es unless we start act­ing soon.

In a nut­shell, what is the core idea behind AUG­MEN­Tx?

The core idea is to lever­age visu­al-cog­ni­tive and visu­al-motor/sen­so­ry con­nec­tions of the brain to enhance per­for­mance in dis­ease states.  For exam­ple, mir­ror ther­a­py takes advan­tage of the mir­ror neu­ron path­way to improve post-stroke motor recov­ery and to alle­vi­ate phan­tom limb pain in limb amputees.  And we believe that these ther­a­pies can be deliv­ered on dig­i­tized AR plat­forms, instead of being always con­fined to few spe­cial­ized phys­i­cal reha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­ters.  Why not have them be acces­si­ble from the patient’s home [Read more…] about Dr. Albert Kwon, CEO of Brain­no­va­tions Win­ner AUG­MEN­Tx, wants to har­ness Aug­ment­ed Real­i­ty to sig­nif­i­cant­ly ease access to Neu­ro­log­i­cal Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Therapies

Grand Rounds 5:12 — Healthcare Reform Q&A

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“If Dr. Rob can inter­view San­ta, why can’t I inter­view a select group of health & med­ical blog­gers? They will have some good ideas to share”.

So did Pres­i­dent-elect Oba­ma came to real­ize a few days ago. After his peo­ple kind­ly con­tact­ed our peo­ple, we felt com­pelled to grant him open access to our col­lec­tive wis­dom. With­out fur­ther ado, below you have Grand Rounds 5:12 — a Q&A ses­sion led by the incom­ing Pres­i­dent on how to reform (for the bet­ter, we hope) healthcare.

On Health Insurance

Q:  How does the blo­gos­phere per­ceive the prob­lem of hav­ing a sig­nif­i­cant group of peo­ple uninsured?

Health Insur­ance Col­orado: a grow­ing eco­nom­ic bur­den, which may lead to emer­gency rooms turn­ing peo­ple away if they are unable to pro­vide proof of health insurance.

Dr Rich: well, a recent arti­cle in the Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion showed how over­crowd­ing in Amer­i­can emer­gency rooms is NOT due to the unin­sured. Rather, it is due to insured Amer­i­cans who can­not get in to see their pri­ma­ry care physi­cians. We may need improved care both for the insured and unin­sured groups.

Insure­Blog: I’d sec­ond that. Lack of health insur­ance is a major prob­lem but is it real­ly our Biggest Problem?

It’s All about Attitude

Q: You may have heard my cam­paign mantra, “Yes We Can”. Can I count on your support? 

ButY­ouDont­Look­Sick: Yes. If Leslie Hunt can talk so open­ly about her chron­ic ill­ness (Lupus) yet ful­fill her Amer­i­can Idol dreams, we can ful­fill our dreams too.

Notes of an Anes­the­sioboist: you are talk­ing to the group of pro­fes­sion­als will­ing to self-exper­i­ment with our own body for the ben­e­fit of sci­ence and our patients.

Med­views: My wife, son, and I signed up to work as med­ical vol­un­teers for your upcom­ing inauguration.

Emergi­Blog: I am on board too. But, please, remem­ber that car­ing is the essence of nurs­ing. And that is why my patients will always be my patients and nev­er my  clients.

Neu­roan­thro­pol­o­gy: Mr. Pres­i­dent-elect, it seems to me that, despite all our good inten­tions, bal­anc­ing the bud­get and mul­ti­ple com­pet­ing pri­or­i­ties will be a chal­lenge. May I sug­gest you start prac­tic­ing some capoeira for equi­lib­ri­um training?

Shrink Rap: Hap­py to help. Now, we will need to pro­tect some time for qual­i­ty sleep time.

Train­ing

Q: I am encour­aged by your words. How can my team and I bet­ter sup­port you in your dai­ly activities?

Aequa­nim­i­tas: we need more role mod­els for us to “learn to think, observe, and com­pare” and that the patient is our “first, last, and only teacher”.

Mud­phud­der: Could­n’t agree more. We need [Read more…] about Grand Rounds 5:12 — Health­care Reform Q&A