For people rendered unable to speak by cerebral palsy, stroke, or traumatic brain injury, VocaliD’s software creates custom speech patterns that sound like the original person’s voice.
After recording whatever sounds a person can produce, VocaliD’s software sifts through its database of 15,000 volunteers’ voice samples for the closest match, based on factors like age and accent. The software blends the subject’s sample with the surrogate voice’s thousands of prerecorded sentences to turn typed text into speech.
Smart medicines that tell doctors when their patients have taken them moved a step closer to reality after a company developing the first “digital pill” had its drug application accepted by US regulators.
The hope is that the pill, produced by Proteus Digital Health, will help ensure patients stick to their prescriptions and so reduce wasteful spending on drugs that are not taken properly. It could be especially useful in mental illnesses and memory disorders such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s where compliance is particularly poor.
U.S. News evaluated nearly 5,000 hospitals for the 2015-16 Best Hospitals rankings. Only 15 of them made the Honor Roll. Hospitals on the exclusive list achieved high scores in at least six of the 16 Best Hospitals specialty rankings. Top-tier scores earned two points per specialty and slightly lower scores one point. Honor Roll rank is by total points.
Photo of the perennial leader (2nd in this rating) Mayo Clinic
“Sentrian's approach collects data streams from biosensors and uses machine learning algorithms to detect subtle patterns based on general information within the system on ;chronic conditions. These can include heart disease, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Data such as heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen saturation from wireless biosensorson the patient are pushed to a cloud-based engine that analyses this data and notifies doctors when needed.
Martin Kohn, chief medical scientist at Sentrian, who practised emergency medicine for 30 years, explains the value in this approach. "It's based on the premise that for many patients with diseases such as congestive heart failure and COPD, the processes that lead to severe illness start days before the patient actually becomes acutely ill," he says. “
Amid the hype about virtual reality and robotics at CES 2016, I strapped on a headset and exoskeleton designed to make you feel 40 years older. That’s right, older. The R70i Age Suit, made by a tech firm, Applied Minds LLC for Genworth Financial, an insurance company, simulates vision and hearing loss, as well as reduced mobility from muscle deterioration and arthritis.
At the game tonight, we should see a contraption where U of Alabama’s football, medical, engineering and marketing savvy come together. Courtesy of USA Today
“There are several design components that make the tent unique and so practical for football, starting with the fact the frame is actually anchored to and connected with the base of the trainer's table. The covering expands and collapses like an accordion within 10 seconds and basically is just pulled over the top to erect the tent. It weighs about 70 pounds, making it easy to transport. The synthetic material covering it keeps out rain or other elements but also allows in enough light for doctors and trainers to see. It was designed to be sturdy and stable enough to go on any kind of surface that might be on a sideline — grass, artificial turf, concrete, asphalt, etc. — without needing to be staked or anchored into the ground with heavy weights like your typical tailgate tent. They also tested the height to make sure it doesn’t obstruct the view of fans.
There’s also an added bonus for schools: More advertising space to sell, which Alabama has utilized to display the logos of a local hospital and sports medicine center (for the College Football Playoff, it is using an Alabama-branded look).”
For many years, the consensus was that the human brain couldn’t generate new cells once it reached adulthood. Once you were grown, you entered a state of neural decline. This was a view perhaps most famously expressed by the so-called founder of modern neuroscience, Santiago Ramón y Cajal. After an early interest in plasticity, he became sceptical, writing in 1928, “In adult centres the nerve paths are something fixed, ended, immutable. Everything may die, nothing may be regenerated. It is for the science of the future to change, if possible, this harsh decree.” Cajal’s gloomy prognosis was to rumble through the 20th century.
Although the notion that the adult brain could undergo significant positive changes received sporadic attention, throughout the 20th century, it was generally overlooked, as a young psychologist called Ian Robertson was to discover in 1980. He’d just begun working with people who had had strokes at the Astley Ainslie Hospital in Edinburgh, and found himself puzzled by what he was seeing. “I’d moved into what was a new field for me, neuro-rehabilitation,” he says. At the hospital, he witnessed adults receiving occupational therapy and physiotherapy. Which made him think… if they’d had a stroke, that meant a part of their brain had been destroyed. And if a part of their brain had been destroyed, everyone knew it was gone for ever. So how come these repetitive physical therapies so often helped? It didn’t make sense. “I was trying to get my head around, what was the model?” he says. “What was the theoretical basis for all this activity here?”
The MedCottage, designed by a Blacksburg company with help from Virginia Tech, is essentially a portable hospital room. Virginia state law, which recognized the dwellings a few years ago, classifies them as “temporary family health-care structures.” But many simply know them as “granny pods,” and they have arrived on the market as the nation prepares for a wave of graying baby boomers to retire.
In a 2007 purchase of medicines from Merck KGaA, drugmaker Mylan picked up a decades-old product, the EpiPen auto injector for food allergy and bee-sting emergencies. Management first thought to divest the aging device, which logged only $200 million in revenue. Then Heather Bresch, now Mylan’s chief executive officer, hit on the idea of using old-fashioned marketing in part to boost sales among concerned parents of children with allergies. That started EpiPen, which delivers about $1 worth of the hormone epinephrine, on a run that’s resulted in its becoming a $1 billion-a-year product that clobbers its rivals and provides about 40 percent of Mylan’s operating profits, says researcher ABR|Healthco. EpiPen margins were 55 percent in 2014, up from 9 percent in 2008, ABR|Healthco estimates.