Researchers in New Zealand have developed a prototype Bluetooth-enabled medical monitoring device that can be connected wirelessly to your smart phone and keep track of various physiological parameters, such as body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure and movements. The prototype could be extended to include sensors for other factors such as blood glucose as well as markers for specific diseases. The connectivity would allow patients to send data directly to their healthcare provider and receive timely advice and medication suggestions.

Helen Zhou and Tim Roberts of the School of Electrical Engineering at Manukau Institute of Technology explain how they have developed a microcontroller-based personal health monitoring unit that can carry medical sensors and a positioning device. The unit can connect to other devices via the short-range wireless networking system known as Bluetooth and so could be readily connected to software on a smart mobile phone for health monitoring.

The team adds that the mobile phone can be used as a gateway to further relay patient health data to a remote database via the mobile network for remote diagnoses. ‘Any medical instructions can be sent back instantly to the mobile users,’ the team says. ‘The use of standard development tools makes it possible for patients to easily use everyday mobile devices for their personal health monitoring and assessment anytime anywhere.’ They add that, ‘Bluetooth and mobile networks enable wireless communications among mobile users, medical professionals and other healthcare givers in an easy, secure and efficient manner.’

The device software is based on the familiar cross-platform Java system and provides user with an easy to use graphical user interface (GUI) on their smart phone that uses the standard navigation buttons on mobile devices.

The humble aspirin may soon have a new role. Scientists from The City College of New York have developed a new aspirin compound that has great promise to be not only an extremely potent cancer-fighter, but even safer than the classic medicine cabinet staple.

The new designer aspirin curbed the growth of 11 different types of human cancer cells in culture without harming normal cells, reported a team from the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education of The City College of New York in a paper published this month in the journal ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters. The cancers controlled included colon, pancreatic, lung, prostate, breast, and leukaemia. ‘The key components of this new compound are that it is very, very potent and yet it has minimal toxicity to the cells,’ said Associate Professor Khosrow Kashfi, the principal investigator.

The aspirin compound also shrank human colon cancer tumours by 85 percent in live animals, again without adverse effects, according to a second paper in press by the City College researchers and colleague Kenneth Olson of Indiana University School of Medicine, South Bend. ‘If what we have seen in animals can be translated to humans,’ said Professor Kashfi, ‘it could be used in conjunction with other drugs to shrink tumours before chemotherapy or surgery.’

Long the go-to drug for minor aches and pains, aspirin and other so-called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen and naproxen, are known primarily for their ability to calm inflammation. Studies in the 1980

Primary care physicians are faced with treating a large proportion of chronic pain patients, but many do not often have specific training in the assessment and management of chronic pain, including the use of opioid medications for chronic pain management. Recognising the significant role prescribers can play in reducing the risk of addiction, unintentional overdose, and death from the misuse and abuse of opioids, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has made prescriber education a central part of its Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) requirements for manufacturers of long-acting and extended-release (LA/ER) opioids.
With this in mind, Inflexxion

Laser-based measurements are proving to be a promising method for the assessment of osteoporosis. The team led by Professor Jussi Timonen has developed an ultrasound technique that use laser beams for a rapid and accurate assessment of osteoporosis. The research is part of the Photonics and Modern Imaging Techniques Research Programme of the Academy of Finland and involves input by researchers from the Universities of Jyv

Aberdeen researchers have discovered how a controversial but effective treatment in psychiatry acts on the brain in people who are severely depressed.
Electroconvulsive therapy or ECT – which involves anaesthetising a patient and electrically inducing a seizure – is the most potent treatment option for patients with serious mood disorder.
Despite being used successfully in clinical practice around the world for more than 70 years, the underlying mechanisms of ECT have so far remained unclear.
Now a multidisciplinary team of clinicians and scientists at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, has shown for the first time that ECT affects the way different parts of the brain involved in depression