Wearable Devices and Mobile Health Technology: One Step Towards Better Health
With increasing efforts being made to address the current global obesity epidemic, wearable devices and mobile health ("mHealth") technology have emerged as promising tools for promoting physical activity. However, current literature seems to indicate that these new technologies may serve best as part of a larger overall health plan, rather than working alone to encourage weight loss.
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E-Textiles Control Home Appliances with the Swipe of a Finger
Electronic textiles could allow a person to control household appliances or computers from a distance simply by touching a wristband or other item of clothing - something that could be particularly helpful for those with limited mobility. Now researchers, reporting in ACS Nano, have developed a new type of e-textile that is self-powered, highly sensitive and washable.
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Doctors Rely on More than Just Data for Medical Decision Making
Many technology companies are working on artificial intelligence systems that can analyze medical data to help diagnose or treat health problems. Such systems raise the question of whether this kind of technology can perform as well as a human doctor. A new study from MIT computer scientists suggests that human doctors provide a dimension that, as yet, artificial intelligence does not.
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App, Brief Intervention may be Lifesaver for Suicidal Teens
A troubled teenager is hospitalized with suicidal thoughts. The patient is diagnosed, medicated, and counseled by a team of experts. The teen is sent home a few days later, and the following week the parent finds the child's bedsheets fashioned into a noose. The scenario is tragically common in the field of psychiatry, which has long struggled to develop strategies to help adolescents cope with recurring thoughts of suicide in the weeks after leaving the hospital.
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Wearable Device can Predict Older Adults' Risk of Falling
Every year, more than one in three individuals aged 65 and older will experience a fall. Falls are the most common cause of injury in older adults, and can create ongoing health problems. But treatment and awareness of falling usually happens after a fall has already occurred. As a part of the NIH's Women's Health Initiative, researchers wanted to see if they could predict an individual's risk of falling so that preventative measures could be taken to reduce this risk.
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Research Finds Three Major Failings in some Apps Used for the Diagnosis of Skin Cancer
In the scramble to bring successful apps for the diagnosis of skin cancer to market there is a concern that a lack of testing is risking public safety, according to research led by the University of Birmingham. The research, outlined at the British Association of Dermatologists' Annual Meeting in Edinburgh, reviewed the medical literature on skin cancer apps to explore the number of apps on the market, ascertain how accurate they are, and what the benefits and limitations of these technological solutions are.
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Researchers Apply Computing Power to Track the Spread of Cancer
Princeton researchers have developed a new computational method that increases the ability to track the spread of cancer cells from one part of the body to another. This migration of cells can lead to metastatic disease, which causes about 90 percent of cancer deaths from solid tumors - masses of cells that grow in organs such as the breast, prostate or colon.
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