Healthcare, the electronic future may be near

From yourdoctorinfo blog:  Electronic prescription systems that can automate order entry, preparation, delivery and check patient records for drug allergies and interactions have the potential to save lives by eliminating most prescribing and transcription errors. These systems allow providers with handheld devices to match bar-coded medication with bar-coded patient and physician IDs, establishing an accurate and fully documented “medication information supply chain.”

An automated supply tracking and inventory control solution using wireless handheld scanners and enterprise database software.

An automated, remote patient monitoring and charting solution that links Bluetooth*- enabled medical devices and monitoring equipment with department and care center systems by way of an integrated wireless LAN relay device located in each patient room. Management systems can’t solve these problems unless their services and data are readily accessible at every point where providers and patients interact.

A wireless LAN-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone system that lets nurses and physicians communicate easily using tiny, wearable voice-activated “badges.”  Continue reading here http://www.yourdoctorinfo.com/unwiring-the-healthcare-industry/

How to Get Water Out of Your Ear

Intro: There are many situations when swimming, taking a bath, or even taking a shower, where water can get in your ears. Not only does water in your ear annoy you but it can also be bad for you. Follow these steps to getwater out of your ear.

Step 1:  Shake the water out. Try to  set a pillow on the bed and gently hit your ear and head against the pillow until the water comes out. Be careful not to hit your head hard or you will hurt your neck or give yourself a headache.  It does hurt your neck sometimes so be careful. 

Step 2: If hitting your head against the pillow doesn't work, try lying down with your ear on the pillow for a little while. The water may come out.
Step 3: Next, try using a dropper to add a little more water to ear and then immediately trying step 1 to get the water out.
Step 4: To get water out of your ear, antiseptic eardrops may do the trick but this will cost you a little bit of money. Put the drops in and then try
step 1 and step 2.
Step 5: Help the water evaporate by putting two small drops of rubbing alcohol into your ear.
Step 6: If you can not get the water out, you should go to the doctor. The doctor will be able to safely get the water out of your ear.
Tips: Be patient. Sometimes it takes 30 - 60 minutes for you to successful get the water out of your ear.

Warnings: See a doctor if your ear is in pain and you cannot get the water out.

Don't hurt yourself by slamming your head against a pillow.

Read more here
http://www.wikihow.com/Remove-Water-from-Ears
http://www.rd.com/living-healthy/how-to-get-water-out-of-your-ears/article76207.html
http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/6783

Tags: ear, ears, get water out of your ear, getting water our of your ear, getting water out of ears, how do i get water out of my ear, how do you get water out of your ear, how to get water out of ears,
how to get water out of your ear, removing water from your ears

Medical imaging Imaging technology

Medical imaging is the technique and process used to create images of the human body (or parts and function thereof) for clinical purposes (medical procedures seeking to reveal, diagnose or examine disease) or medical science (including the study of normal anatomy and physiology).

2 Imaging technology
2.1 Electron microscopy
2.2 Radiographic
2.3 Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
2.4 Nuclear medicine
2.5 Photoacoustic imaging
2.6 Breast Thermography
2.7 Tomography
2.8 Ultrasound

video-The history of medical imaging, excellent overview
http://medicareer.com.au/board/index.html?id=nursing&no=25

 

New MITA report says innovations in imaging technologies lead to reductions of 20-75 percent in radiation dose for many imaging procedures… Read press release. Read full report.

American Cancer Society recommends MRI for high-risk breast cancer… More...

New Consumer Guides explain role of imaging in stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and breast cancer…

How to Stop a Nosebleed

Intro: Many people suffer from frequent nose bleeds. It can be annoying and down right embarrassing especially when out in public. Follow these steps to stop a nosebleed.

 

Step 1: To stop a nosebleed, get a couple tissues and blow your nose as hard as you can. You will need a couple tissues or paper towels so you don’t get anything on your hands.

Step 2: When stopping a nosebleed, you should plug the nostril which isn’t bleeding with your finger and then blow air out the other nostril as hard as you can.

Step 3: You should see a dark clot in the tissue or paper towel. This should signal that the nosebleed is pretty much over.

Step 4: Using this method should help stop the nosebleed quickly and prevent future nosebleeds.

Step 5: Some other tips to stop a nosebleed are pinching your nose while applying a cold compress.

Step 6: To prevent a nosebleed, you can apply a small about of vaseline to the inside of your nose.

Tips: This not only helps you stop a nosebleed short term but long term also.

If your child continues to pick his/her nose, you should keep their fingernails short to prevent future nosebleeds.

After a nosebleed, relax for awhile, to ensure you don't give yourself another nosebleed.

Nosebleeds occur most often in the fall and winter so try apply some vaseline to the inside of your nose every morning.

Warnings: If your nosebleed won’t stop bleeding or you continue to get them frequently then see a doctor.

When stopping a nosebleed, you should avoid wedging a cotton ball up your nose.

 

Read more here http://www.wikihow.com/Stop-a-Nose-Bleed

http://www.ehow.com/how_2045_stop-nosebleed.html

http://firstaid.about.com/od/bleedingcontrol/ht/06_epistaxis.htm

http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/healthy/firstaid/basics/132.html

http://stop-nosebleeds.org/

Youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfspqozKMbM

Youtube video http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-stop-a-nosebleed

Tags: blow your nose, how do you stop a nose bleed, how to stop a nosebleed, natural remedies, nose
prevent a nosebleed, stop a nose bleed, stop a nosebleed, stop a nosebleed  naturally

What are plastic surgery risks?

Click the headline to read the whole article as more and more people want plastic surgury

What are plastic surgery risks?

Me? A Doctor?

 

From the blog scribesexpress:  That’s one thing people don’t understand. Striving to be a doctor, like any other high-end profession, requires money. Lots and lots of it. It’s actually been turned into a business—universities here and there offer medical studies and demand shocking payments in return for a diploma and certificates. Aside from the money constraints, taking up medicine will eat up a lot of your time. People just don’t realize that medical students spend most of their young adult lives in the classroom, the clinic, the hospital, and in outreach programs. They spend countless hours in clinical duties. Sure, these duties may be in shifting schedules, but they can incur double or even triple shifts. Take cousin Raymund. After taking up B.S. Biology as a pre-medical course, he went on to study general medicine. It took him six years of studies and duties to finish the program. Afterwards, he had to review for the medical licensing examinations. If I’m not mistaken, licensing examinations for medical practitioners take five days! Whew! During all that time, you never saw kuya Raymund, right? He was always busy. Is that what you want to do? And don’t forget—it’s a highly technical area of study! Would you like to spend your 20 something years memorizing human diseases and pathology? All those essential drugs, their indications, contraindications, pharmacokinetics, side effects, adverse effects, dosages, and frequencies? How about their generic names & local and international brand names?

Uhm, no.

Continue reading here
http://scribesexpress.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/me-a-doctor/

What’s Worth Paying For When Buying Vitamins

December 4, 2009 NY Times WHEN I stock up on ibuprofen (my painkiller of choice), I typically buy a 500-count bottle of a store brand like Kirkland or Rite Aid. After all, ibuprofen is ibuprofen. Each pill costs me about 3 cents — or only one-third the cost of 9-cent Advil.

A Vitamin Shoppe location in Manhattan. ConsumerLab.com found products sold by vitamin chains tended to be more reliable than drugstore brands.

Yet, when it comes to vitamins — which I take only when I feel run down — I turn to name brands like Centrum or Nature Made. My thinking has been: Why mess around with quality when it comes to the essential ABCs?
But now that I’ve done some research, I might soon change my vitamin-buying ways. Read on to find out why http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/health/05patient.html?_r=1&hpw

20 Medical Advances to Be Thankful For

From the Wall Street Journal,

Life expectancy in the U.S. reached an all-time high of 77.9 years in 2007

Death rates dropped significantly for eight of the 15 leading causes of death in the U.S.,

The death rate from coronary heart disease dropped 34% from 1995 to 2005

The death rate from cancer, the second-biggest killer, dropped 16% from 1990 to 2006

Nearly 40% of U.S. adults have never had a permanent tooth extracted

Continue reading here for the full 20 medical advances and the details behind the advances here
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703819904574553930012357104.html

Don't give your kidneys to heaven, we need them here

From the Philippine Star It might seem to border on the macabre — this subject of harvesting the organs of the dead so that these may be transplanted and prolong the lives of needy patients. But with a growing population requiring transplants, deceased organ donation is the most feasible alternative to address the problem of lack of organs for transplantation.

Consider these figures: The Philippine Renal Disease Registry said that in 2007, 10,000 to 12,000 individuals developed end-stage renal disease. Of these, half or 5,000 required kidney transplants. However, less than 10 percent (or less than 500) were able to undergo transplant surgery because of insufficient organ supply. With 95.5 percent of the kidneys transplanted coming from living donors in the Philippines, only 15 deceased donor organs are transplanted each year. This means that otherwise usable kidneys are buried and in effect, wasted. Continue reading by clicking the title below

Don't give your kidneys to heaven, we need them here

10 surprising facts about cholesterol

When examining labels, look at fat content as well as cholesterol numbers.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Signs of high cholesterol can show up on your skin as reddish-yellowish bumps
  
• Low cholesterol can be bad too
  
• A food low is cholesterol can still raise your cholesterol level depending on the fat content
  
• Cholesterol numbers are improving, in part thanks to better diets, drugs

(from Health.com) -- Like most people, you probably think of cholesterol -- if you think of it at all -- and picture fatty foods and heart trouble.

Yes, elevated blood cholesterol is bad news, and 34 million Americans have levels that can increase their risk of all sorts of health problems, including a heart attack.

But if you think you've heard everything you need to know about this waxy fat, there may be a few surprises in store.

For one, cholesterol can be so high that it shows up in fatty deposits in the skin. On the other end of the spectrum, cholesterol can even be too low.

High cholesterol inevitable for some

If you have sky-high cholesterol, it may be partly genetic. But for some families, it's inevitable that LDL, or bad cholesterol, will be in the unhealthy zone. The disease, known as familial hypercholesterolemia, affects about 1 in 500 people and can cause total cholesterol levels from 300 mg/dL to 600 mg/dL, as well as heart attacks early in life.

Some people with familial hypercholesterolemia inherit two defective genes (one from each parent)­, a much rarer condition that affects 1 in 1 million people; they can have total cholesterol over 1000 mg/dL. Such high cholesterol can cause early death, often before age 20.

Health.com: 7 causes of high cholesterol

Clogged arteries look like butter

Even if you can't see xanthomas on the skin, high cholesterol can still build up in the body.

LDL slowly builds up in artery walls, causing a thick plaque that can narrow arteries, restrict blood flow, and lead to blood clots.

Arteries thicken, become more rigid, and start to take on the yellow color of cholesterol. If you were able to take a look at the inside of cholesterol-clogged arteries, they would look as if they were lined with a thick layer of frozen butter!

You can see high cholesterol

Normally, you only know you have high cholesterol levels if a doctor tells you so. But it is possible for high cholesterol to be as plain as the nose on your face, showing up on the skin as reddish-yellowish bumps known as xanthomas.

The patches vary in size and can be found all over the body, including on the joints, hands, and eyelids (though not all eyelid xanthomas are caused by high cholesterol). They tend to occur in older people and in those with diabetes or other health problems.

Xanthomas are also more likely to be seen in people with familial hypercholesterolemia, who can even have them in infancy.

Health.com: Myths about your cholesterol number

Cholesterol can be too low

Everyone knows that high cholesterol is bad, but very low cholesterol can be unhealthy too.

Experts recommend that you keep your total cholesterol under 200 mg/dL, which is about the average for adults. However, below a certain level -- generally 160 mg/dL -- low cholesterol is associated with health risks, including cancer. Do the health problems cause low cholesterol, or vice versa? Are they even unrelated? It's not clear.

Research shows that some pregnant women with low total cholesterol are more likely to give birth prematurely. Low total cholesterol and LDL levels have even been linked to anxiety and depression.

Our cholesterol is dropping

Finally some good news! While you may assume that cholesterol levels have blossomed along with the obesity epidemic, cholesterol has in fact dropped.

For example, 33 percent of people ages 20 to 74 had high cholesterol (defined as above 240 mg/dL) in the early 1960s, and the average was 222 mg/dL; in 2003 to 2006, about 16 percent of people in that age group had high cholesterol and the average was 200 mg/dL.

Elevated cholesterol, which was unrecognized as a serious health problem 50 years ago, is dropping mainly because of more awareness of its dangers, which has resulted in healthier diets, more cholesterol screening, and the widespread use of statin medications.

Health.com: Are you cholesterol smart? Take our quiz

Exercise boosts good cholesterol

Doctors generally recommend exercise as a lifestyle change that can help lower cholesterol naturally.

But a recent study in the Journal of Lipid Research suggests that exercise may affect cholesterol differently, depending on the patient's race and gender.

Among the study participants, who were followed over nine years, physical activity equivalent to an extra hour of mild exercise or half hour of moderate exercise per week was associated with an increase in high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or good cholesterol, in each of the groups the researchers studied.

But LDL, the bad cholesterol, dropped only in women, and total cholesterol dropped only in African-American women.

Cholesterol-free food can still raise cholesterol

Watch out for cholesterol-free food. Cholesterol is made by the liver of animals, and it will only be found in animal-based foods, such as meat, milk, and eggs. Certain products can honestly state that they have little or no cholesterol -- however, that doesn't mean they are good for your cholesterol levels.

Many fried foods and commercial baked goods contain cholesterol-raising trans fats, most commonly in the form of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. Trans fats, along with saturated fats, are the main culprits of high cholesterol from food, but they won't be listed as cholesterol on packaging.

Read ingredient lists and nutrition labels carefully, looking at fat content as well as the cholesterol content, before deeming a purchase a healthy choice.

Health.com: 5 heart-healthy recipes

High cholesterol may cause erectile dysfunction

Sure, it's bad for your heart. But high cholesterol can cause a host of other health problems.

A 2005 Swedish study found that men with total cholesterol of about 270 mg/dL and above were 4.5 times more likely to develop testicular cancer than men with cholesterol levels of 220 or below (though the authors cautioned that the link between the two conditions was probably complicated by other factors).

What's more, high cholesterol has been linked to a greater risk of erectile dysfunction, kidney failure, and even Alzheimer's disease.

And a 2009 study found that diets high in dietary cholesterol are associated with an increased risk of developing liver cirrhosis or liver cancer. Continue reading here http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/11/24/moh.healthmag.cholesterol.surprises/index.html

Read more about cholesterol at these links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholesterol

http://www.pdnhf.org/detail.asp?dt=topics&arch=yes&fr=s&id=181

20 Health Advances to Be Thankful For

Life Is Getting Measurably Better for Many People Here and Abroad
News about health often focuses on the negative: scary new flu viruses,
incurable diseases, dashed hopes for miracle drugs. Maybe that's because we
have such high expectations that doctors and scientists can fix anything.

But amid all that bad news-not to mention the acrimony over health-care
reform-it's easy to overlook how much progress has been made in recent
years. Here are 20 health-care advances to give thanks for:

Nearly 62% of U.S. adults said they were in excellent or very good health,
along with 82% of their children, according to families sampled by the
federal government for the National Health Interview Survey, which was
conducted in 2007 and released this year. Continue reading here
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703819904574553930012357104.html

Panel says mammogram should start at age 50

Panel says mammogram should start at age 50

NEW YORK — In a recommendation sure to generate confusion, most women don't need a mammogram in their 40s and should get one every two years starting at 50, a government task force said Monday. It marked a major reversal from the American Cancer Society's position Read the complete article here http://www.buffalonews.com/180/story/864209.html

A mammogram is a special type of X-ray of the breasts. Mammograms can show tumors long before they are big enough for you or your health care provider to feel. Mammograms are recommended every year or two for women older than 40. They are also recommended for younger women who have symptoms of breast cancer or who have a high risk of the disease.

Mammograms are quick and easy. You stand in front of an X-ray machine. The person who takes the X-rays places your breast between two plastic plates. The plates press your breast and make it flat. This may be uncomfortable, but it helps get a clear picture. You will have an X-ray of each breast. A mammogram takes only a few seconds and it can help save your life.

Read more

Mammography

What is Mammography? What are some common uses of the procedure? How should I prepare? What does the equipment look like? How does the procedure work? How is the procedure performed? What will I experience during and after the procedure? Who interprets the results and how do I get them? What are the benefits vs. risks? What are the limitations of Mammography?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammography

http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=mammo

http://www.medicinenet.com/mammogram/article.htm

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mammography.html

A Breathing Technique Offers Help for People With Asthma

I don’t often write about alternative remedies for serious medical conditions. Most have little more than anecdotal support, and few have been found effective in well-designed clinical trials. Such trials randomly assign patients to one of two or more treatments and, wherever possible, assess the results without telling either the patients or evaluators who received which treatment.

Now, however, in describing an alternative treatment for asthma that does not yet have top clinical ratings in this country (although it is taught in Russian medical schools and covered by insurance in Australia), I am going beyond my usually stringent research criteria for three reasons:

¶The treatment, a breathing technique discovered half a century ago, is harmless if practiced as directed with a well-trained therapist.
¶It has the potential to improve the health and quality of life of many people with asthma, while saving health care dollars.
¶I’ve seen it work miraculously well for a friend who had little choice but to stop using the steroid medications that were keeping him alive.

My friend, David Wiebe, 58, of Woodstock, N.Y., is a well-known maker of violins and cellos, with a 48-year history of severe asthma that was treated with bronchodilators and steroids for two decades. Ten years ago, Mr. Wiebe noticed gradually worsening vision problems, eventually diagnosed as a form of macular degeneration caused by the steroids. Two leading retina specialists told him to stop using the drugs if he wanted to preserve his sight.

He did, and endured several terrifying trips to the emergency room when asthma attacks raged out of control and forced him to resume steroids temporarily to stay alive.
Nothing else he tried seemed to work. “After having a really poor couple of years with significantly reduced quality of life and performance at work,” he told me, “I was ready to give up my eyesight and go back on steroids just so I could breathe better.”

Treatment From the ’50s
Then, last spring, someone told him about the Buteyko method, a shallow-breathing technique developed in 1952 by a Russian doctor, Konstantin Buteyko. Mr. Wiebe watched a video demonstration on YouTube and mimicked the instructions shown.

“I could actually feel my airways relax and open,” he recalled. “This was impressive. Two of the participants on the video were basically incapacitated by their asthma and on disability leave from their jobs. They each admitted that keeping up with the exercises was difficult but said they had been able to cut back on their medications by about 75 percent and their quality of life was gradually returning.”

A further search uncovered the Buteyko Center USA in his hometown, newly established as the official North American representative of the Buteyko Clinic in Moscow.

“When I came to the center, I was without hope,” Mr. Wiebe said. “I was using my rescue inhaler 20 or more times in a 24-hour period. If I was exposed to any kind of irritant or allergen, I could easily get a reaction that jeopardized my existence and forced me to go back on steroids to save my life. I was a mess.”
But three months later, after a series of lessons and refresher sessions in shallow breathing, he said, “I am using less than one puff of the inhaler each day — no drugs, just breathing exercises.”

Mr. Wiebe doesn’t claim to be cured, though he believes this could eventually happen if he remains diligent about the exercises. But he said: “My quality of life has improved beyond my expectations. It’s very exciting and amazing. More people should know about this.”

Ordinarily, during an asthma attack, people panic and breathe quickly and as deeply as they can, blowing off more and more carbon dioxide. Breathing rate is controlled not by the amount of oxygen in the blood but by the amount of carbon dioxide, the gas that regulates the acid-base level of the blood.
Dr. Buteyko concluded that hyperventilation — breathing too fast and too deeply — could be the underlying cause of asthma, making it worse by lowering the level of carbon dioxide in the blood so much that the airways constrict to conserve it.

This technique may seem counterintuitive: when short of breath or overly stressed, instead of taking a deep breath, the Buteyko method instructs people to breathe shallowly and slowly through the nose, breaking the vicious cycle of rapid, gasping breaths, airway constriction and increased wheezing.

The shallow breathing aspect intrigued me because I had discovered its benefits during my daily lap swims. I noticed that swimmers who had to stop to catch their breath after a few lengths of the pool were taking deep breaths every other stroke, whereas I take in small puffs of air after several strokes and can go indefinitely without becoming winded.

The Buteyko practitioners in Woodstock, Sasha and Thomas Yakovlev-Fredricksen, were trained in Moscow by Dr. Andrey Novozhilov, a Buteyko disciple. Their treatment involves two courses of five sessions each: one in breathing technique and the other in lifestyle management. The breathing exercises gradually enable clients to lengthen the time between breaths. Mr. Wiebe, for example, can now take a breath after more than 10 seconds instead of just 2 while at rest.

Responses May Vary
His board-certified pulmonologist, Dr. Marie C. Lingat, told me: “Based on objective data, his breathing has improved since April even without steroids. The goal now is to make sure he maintains the improvement. The Buteyko method works for him, but that doesn’t mean everyone who has asthma would respond in the same way.”
In an interview, Mrs. Yakovlev-Fredricksen said: “People don’t realize that too much air can be harmful to health. Almost every asthmatic breathes through his mouth and takes deep, forceful inhalations that trigger a bronchospasm,” the hallmark of asthma.

“We teach them to inhale through the nose, even when they speak and when they sleep, so they don’t lose too much carbon dioxide,” she added.

At the Woodstock center, clients are also taught how to deal with stress and how to exercise without hyperventilating and to avoid foods that in some people can provoke an asthma attack.

The practitioners emphasize that Buteyko clients are never told to stop their medications, though in controlled clinical trials in Australia and elsewhere, most have been able to reduce their dependence on drugs significantly. The various trials, including a British study of 384 patients, have found that, on average, those who are diligent about practicing Buteyko breathing can expect a 90 percent reduction in the use of rescue inhalers and a 50 percent reduction in the need for steroids within three to six months.

The British Thoracic Society has given the technique a “B” rating, meaning that positive results of the trials are likely to have come from the Buteyko method and not some other factor. Now, perhaps, it is time for the pharmaceutically supported American medical community to explore this nondrug technique as well.

Read the complete original article here http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/health/03brod.html?em=&pagewanted=print

More on Asthma

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asthma

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/Asthma/Asthma_WhatIs.html

http://asthma.about.com/

http://www.doh.gov.ph/faq/show/487

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/asthma.html

Medical Apps for the iPhone

My assignment was to speak for 18 minutes (the standard talk length) about medical apps for the Apple iPhone. Sounds easy, right? Only one problem: there are about 7,000 medical apps.

After a lot of time reading "best medical apps" stories online, asking Twitter users for their suggestions and reading online reviews, I finally boiled the list down to about 50 promising apps. I tried them out and further winnowed the list to a bunch that I ultimately demo'ed in my talk. Eventually, the video of the talk will be posted at ted.com/talks, but in the meantime, here's what I covered.

(I haven't really given them full-blown testing, so read the online reviews before you spend good money on them. Except for the free ones—you've got nothing to lose!)

FOR PATIENTS:
* JetLag RX. You input your travel destination, your usual bedtime and so on. The app recommends a schedule for eating, sleeping and exposure to light in order to land in the new time zone with a minimum of jet lag, based on modern jet-lag research. (Not yet available in the iTunes app store; $10)
* Uhear. Clever, self-administered test for hearing loss. (Free)
* SoundAMP. Turns the iPhone into a hearing aid. Amplifies and processes voices to make them clearer. Even has a 30-second replay button that can save you from having to say "What?" so often. ($9.99)
* ProLoQuo2Go. I read about this one in The Times. It's a speech synthesizer for patients who have trouble speaking; you tap big fat icons to put sentences together. You can also save common phrases into a special Quick Set. For an app, the price is shockingly high. But its competition is an $8,000 PC-based system that's decidedly not mobile. ($190)

* Period Tracker, Period Tracker Companion. The title says it all. This little app helps women predict the onset of each month's period, and wirelessly syncs with the man's app (Companion) so that he can know exactly when "to be a little extra nice and special." (Lite version, free; Companion, $1)

* Lose It! This beautifully designed weight-loss app has an astounding number of followers, if the outpouring of enthusiasm on Twitter is any indication. You tap to record everything you eat. It's actually kind of fun, because the program contains every food item you can imagine, including brand-name packaged food and restaurant-chain menus. For each one, the app lists the complete nutritional information.

You also indicate what exercise you get each day, using a similarly complete list of activities. Finally, you tap in your weight each day. Probably because the app focuses you so well on staying true to your goals, its fans say it truly works. (Free)

* Eyeglasses. As an over-40-year-old, I've become addicted to this app. It simply turns the iPhone 3GS into a magnifying glass. Hold it in front of some tiny type—on a menu, a receipt, a ticket, a medicine bottle—and Eyeglasses, after a moment of autofocusing, shows you a magnified version of it on the screen. Keeping your hand steady is tough, and the 6X and 8X images sort of fall apart—but the 2X and 4X views have saved me more than once. ($3)

* Retina. It's for color-blind people like me. You hold it in front of something—clothes in your closet, for example—and it tells you by name what color you're seeing. I love this one more for the concept than the execution; it says black is "too dark" and white is "too bright," for example, and it really needs more differentiation between various *degrees* of red or whatever. Tinted room light (of the sort that requires white-balance adjustments on a camera) can flummox it. But as an early example of an "augmented reality" app, it's very exciting. (Free)

FOR DOCTORS:

* OsiriX. An amazing viewer of medical images (X-rays, scans of all sort). Drag with one finger to adjust brightness or contrast. Zoom in, rotate. Special modes let you measure some element (tumor, fracture, etc.) with either a circle or a line that you draw with two fingers. Syncs with a special image server at the hospital. ($20)
* Anatomy Lab. A virtual cadaver. Drag up or down with two fingers to peel away (or restore) another thin layer of the photo, down to the organs and beyond. Or choose from a list of body parts and jump directly, revealing that exposed part. Grisly and amazing. ($10)
* Epocrates. Another Twitter favorite. Like an electronic version of the huge Physicians' Desk Reference book. Tap in two or more medications, and it warns you of cross side effects. Tap in the description of a pill (hexagonal, yellow, inscription), and it tells you what the medicine is, and all about it. This much, plus a medical calculator (body mass, etc.) is free; paid versions offer even more instant information for the physician. (Free)
* AirStrip OB. Lets an obstetrician monitor a patient's status, right down to the baby's heartbeat, from elsewhere in the hospital (or the town). Requires that the AirStrip fetal software suite be installed at the hospital. A good hint at the kind of remote monitoring that may be possible. (Free)

Read the full original article here http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/technology/personaltech/05pogue-email.html?_r=1&em=&pagewanted=print

Watch the Walk and Prevent a Fall

FALLS are so harmful to the elderly and so costly to society that if falling were a disease, it would be deemed an epidemic.

.Enlarge This Image

Julie Keefe for The New York Times

Philip and Dorothy Martin are participating in research intended to help prevent falls.

More than one-third of people ages 65 or older fall each year. About one fall in 10 results in a serious injury, like a hip fracture. Roughly 20 percent of older people who suffer a hip fracture die within a year.

The estimated economic cost of falls ranges widely, up to $75 billion a year in the United States, if fall-related home care and assisted-living costs are added to medical expenses.

For years, a small group of geriatric experts has studied falls and suggested preventive programs. Most of the work has relied on visits to doctors and self-reported surveys of volunteers.

But now, researchers are beginning to apply the digital tools of low-cost wireless sensors in carpets, clothing and rooms to monitor an older person’s walking and activity. The continuous measurement and greater precision afforded by simple computing devices, researchers say, promise to deliver new insights on risk factors and tailored prevention measures.

For an older person, a fall is often a byproduct of some other health problem: cardiovascular weakness, changes in medication, the beginnings of dementia, gradual muscle degeneration. Motion analysis aided by inexpensive sensors and computing, researchers say, may well become a new “vital sign,” like ablood pressure reading, that can yield all sorts of clues about health.

“For the last 100 years, clinical research and medical practice have been based on appointments, examinations and asking patients questions — tiny biopsies of time in a person’s life,” said Dr. Jeffrey Kaye, a professor of neurology and biomedical engineering at the Oregon Health and Science University. “But technology now gives us the ability to get behavioral activity data all the time for a much more fine-grained, real-world picture of what is happening with a person’s health.”
The National Institute on Aging is intrigued, and sponsoring some initial research. Richard M. Suzman, the institute’s director of behavioral and social research, said studies of older people’s activity patterns, including early detection of risks, would “increasingly use sensors to deliver this higher fidelity of data.”

“It’s extremely promising,” he added.
Fall prevention also promises to be part of an emerging — and potentially large — worldwide industry of helping older people live independently in their homes longer. The European Union, for example, has committed 1 billion euros, or nearly $1.5 billion, to study and finance technologies and services for the aged. Big corporations, including Intel and General Electric, are investing in the field.
“The independent-living industry could have a huge payoff in innovation, jobs and competitiveness,” said Eric Dishman, an Intel research fellow and director of strategy for the company’s digital health group.

In clinical settings, wearable sensors and wireless sensors embedded in carpets are used to measure precisely a person’s walking speed, stride length, step width and body sway — all variables in assessing the risk of falling.

In Ireland, a research group, Technology Research for Independent Living, recently completed a two-year study of 600 people, ages 60 to 94. The subjects came in for detailed walking assessments, using the sensor technology. The exact measurements, said Dr. Chie Wei Fan, a medical gerontologist at Trinity College Dublin, help in devising more customized exercise programs for specific muscles or changes in medication to eliminate dizziness.

The technology-aided “targeted interventions,” Dr. Fan said, reduced falls by 30 percent in the study group, compared with a similarly aged sampling of the population. But she thinks it should be possible to reach 50 or 60 percent.
“We’re still catching the fallers too late,” Dr. Fan said.
Earlier detection is the goal of an at-home sensor and data study being conducted by the Oregon Center for Aging and Technology, whose sponsors include the Oregon Health and Science University and Intel.

The initial five-year study, begun in 2006 and financed by the National Institute on Aging, involves 230 volunteers, whose mean age is 84. In each home, wireless sensors are placed in rooms and hallways linked to a personal computer connected to the Internet, allowing a person’s activity to be monitored steadily. The cost of the sensors is $200 or less.

Activity patterns from the data, said Dr. Kaye, director of the aging and technology center, can help identify ways to prevent falls. The motion sensors may show that a person with congestive heart failure, for example, is getting up from bed often at night to go to the bathroom. If the heart problem is under control, Dr. Kaye said, it may well be a good idea to reduce the dose of the person’s diuretic, trading a little bit of ankle swelling for a good night’s sleep — and far less risk of falling.

Dorothy Martin, 81, and her husband Philip, 83, joined the study two years ago. They live in a two-bedroom apartment in a retirement community in Lake Oswego, Ore., and as part of the study they fill out weekly self-assessments of their activities and health. Once a year, they undergo detailed, in-person physical and cognitive evaluations. They say the sensor monitoring is unobtrusive because the sensors track only motion, not what they are doing.

Both of the Martins are in good health. Still, they have watched friends grow increasingly frail over the years.

“We did this to participate in research that would be helpful to other people, and possibly to us,” Mr. Martin said. Read the complete orginal article here http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/business/08unboxed.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print