New paper: Informing the Design of “Lifestyle Monitoring” Technology for the Detection of Health Deterioration in Long-Term Conditions: A Qualitative Study of People Living With Heart Failure

A new paper, whose authors include three CATCH academics has been published in the JMIR.

Entitled: "Informing the Design of “Lifestyle Monitoring” Technology for the Detection of Health Deterioration in Long-Term Conditions: A Qualitative Study of People Living With Heart Failure", Dr Sarah Hargreaves, Prof Mark Hawley and Prof Pam Enderby aimed to report in this paper the findings of a study aimed at identifying changes in activity indicative of important changes in health in people with long-term conditions, particularly changes indicative of exacerbation, by exploring the relationship between home activities and health among people with heart failure.

You can read the full article here: http://www.jmir.org/2017/6/e231/

We used Lego to involve children with ADHD and their parents in our research!

Children and young people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) can encounter a number of difficulties including finding it difficult to concentrate at school, finding it difficult to communicate with others, struggling with change and school life, finding it challenging to form and retain friendships with others…the list goes on!

There are also some really great things about having ADHD such as often having a great sense of humour, being very creative, and when managing their condition in the correct way, can go on to lead extremely successful lives. 

NIHR Nottingham BRC - Associate Professor in Digital Technology and Mental Health

An exciting new post which has been created in the new NIHR Nottingham BRC Mental Health & Technology Theme. Please circulate the link to this post within your academic institution and networks.

Associate Professor in Digital Technology and Mental Health

http://nottingham.ac.uk/jobs/currentvacancies/ref/MED171217

The closing date is 6th July, with interviews to be held 13th July.

CATCH receive visit from Ningxia region of China delegation as part of their visit to the Sheffield City Region

On Wednesday 14 June CATCH were honoured to be visited by a delegation from the Ningxia region of China as part of their visit to the Sheffield City Region.

Join us on Monday 15th May in the CATCH Home Lab

On Monday 15^th May, join us for tea and cake, any time from 12.00 – 14.00 to discover how you can use this realistic and welcoming facility in your next research project.

'Electronic skin' to monitor your health

Researchers in Japan have developed "electronic skin" with an organic circuit that can be worn on the human body.

Virtual reality to help depression?

A new therapy has been tested where people beaing treated in the NHs for depression wore a headset that projected an adult avatar of the person onto a mirror as well as a crying child. The project is part of a study at University college London and is working in collaboration with ICREA - University of Barcelona. 
The most recent research has been published in the British Journal of Psychiatry Open.

The aim is to carry out a larger scale clinical trial in the future.


You can read more about this in a BBC article here. 

New Neural Implant Has a Sneaky Way of Getting Inside Heads

DARPA is determined to develop brain-machine interface technology capable of safely and reliably recording enough information from neurons to control “high-performance prosthetic limbs” that will help amputees or people with paralysis regain lost movement. A new implantable device invented by researchers at the University of Melbourne in Australia could be a big step in that direction.

The procedure for implanting the “stentrode,” a stent-like device containing an array of electrodes, builds on established surgical techniques that use blood vessels as portals for accessing different areas of the body. Unlike traditional approachesto putting recording devices in the brain, it doesn’t require opening the skull and bypasses the risks associated with such an invasive procedure.

Click here to learn more.

New Wearable Sensors Know What’s in Your Sweat

In the not-so-distant future, your activity tracker or smart watch may be able to get a much better picture of your health by measuring the chemical components of your sweat. Researchers built a flexible, wearable sensor that can track the level of several different substances in your sweat.

A group of researchers has developed a flexible, wearable band filled with sensors that can track sodium, potassium, glucose, and lactate, along with the temperature of the skin. The data is collected and sent to a flexible electronic board that processes it, and from there it’s sent to a smartphone app via Bluetooth.

For more information, please click here.

Lonliness. More harmful than smoking 15 cigarettes a day?

An article in the Guardian highlights the problem of lonliness and how it is making people ill. it includes some staggering statistics such as "lonliness is more harmful than smoking 15 cigarettes in a day" and GPs see between 1 and 5 lonley older adults over the age of 65 every day.

If you want to read more, please click here.

Who Owns Big Data?

Since the early days of modern computing, science-fiction authors and other visionaries have been fantasizing about a database that could contain all of the world’s knowledge. This idea is now moving out of the realm of fantasy. A small number of technology companies are engaged in serious efforts to build databases that really will contain much of human knowledge. Facebook, for example, has mapped out the social connections among more than a billion people, and Google aspires to digitize all the books in the world. 

Aggregate data and decision making are being hoarded by a few technology companies with powerful data infrastructure. Does it have to be this way? Or could we create a future in which this data infrastructure is available for use by anyone in the world?

For more information, please click here.

Apps of the month

The Guardian has published the Observer's apps reviewer recommendations of 10 apps and 10 mobile games discovered in February 2016. 

The can be found via this link.

A $40,000 Robotic Exoskeleton Lets the Paralyzed Walk

A robotic exoskeleton is now available for around $40,000. The suit returns movement to wearers’ hips and knees with small motors attached to standard orthotics. Wearers can control the movement of each leg and walk at up to 1.1 miles per hour by pushing buttons integrated into a pair of crutches. Still pricier than motorized wheelchairs, SuitX’s Phoenix exoskeleton weighs just 27 pounds and is custom-fit to the user’s body.

Click here to learn more.

FDA nod for LifeWatch wireless, patch-based vital signs monitoring system

Swiss remote diagnostic monitoring company LifeWatch has secured a clearance from the FDA for its wireless, patch-based vital signs monitoring system. It's expected to be used first in medical facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes, but eventually the company expects to target the ambulatory care market as well.

The Vital Signs Patch is worn on a patient's upper chest. In adult patients in a clinical environment, it offers continuous, noninvasive monitoring of ECG, heart rate, respiration rate, surface temperature, arterial blood oxygen saturation and body position. It will be available in two versions, with and without the ECG component.

 

Please click here to read more.

Spreading the word about Telehealth

RAT group researchers Claire Bentley and Dr Jack Parker were invited to Sheffield Hallam University to deliver a workshop for district nursing students, introducing them to Telehealth and issues around its use.

The session included demonstrations of different healthcare technologies (Telemonitoring, an app for lung disease management) and a Question & Answer segment with Telehealth nurse Andrea Hague, in which she spoke about her experiences of delivering the service and the benefits and issues she has experienced.

Feedback from the students was very positive. This was the second workshop with Sheffield Hallam nursing undergraduates, and it is looking like an effective way to break down the awareness barrier among healthcare professionals around healthcare technologies.

Written by Claire Bentley (c.bentley@sheffield.ac.uk) and Dr Jack Parker (jack.parker@sheffield.ac.uk).

 

Study: Smart contact lens offers continuous monitoring of glaucoma progression

Researchers from Columbia University Medical Center have found that smart contact lenses that emit patterns of electrical signals can be used to detect the rate of glaucoma. The smart contact lens system, known as Triggerfish, is from Swiss startup Sensimed and is designed as a diagnostic. It offers an automated, continuous recording of ocular dimensional changes when worn over a 24-hour period.

In addition to the lens itself, Triggerfish includes an adhesive antenna, which is worn around the eye during that period and transmits the data through a cable from the antenna to a portable recorder that's worn around the patient's neck. Data is transferred via Bluetooth from the recorder to software installed on a healthcare provider's computer. This latest data on this lens system was published online today in the journal Ophthalmology.

"What we see in these measurements is a signature that indicates which glaucoma patients will get worse and which are relatively stable, which you can't do with a one-time eye pressure measurement," said study author Dr. C. Gustavo De Moraes, an associate professor of ophthalmology at Columbia University Medical Center. "This could be very useful if you want to know whether a new medication is working for a patient. You can see how their eye is reacting to the therapy in a much more meaningful way."

Further information can be found here.

Telemedicine: How providers, payers are progressing amid continued hurdles [Special Report]

For all of the strides that have been made regarding coverage, both public and private, and available technology, telemedicine continues to be a fringe option for healthcare consumers. Many questions and concerns still linger regarding cost, effectiveness, safety and reimbursement, among other issues.

"On a maturity scale from 1-10, telemedicine is at a three," John Jesser, vice president of provider engagement strategy for Anthem's LiveHealth Online service, tells FierceHealthIT. "Those of us in the health business talk about it, know about it, feel like it's much more ubiquitous. But really, out there among the average American consumer, I'd say that seven out of 10 people probably still don't know that this is even possible."

Still, he says, that doesn't mean that the future isn't bright.

 "The good news is that the arrows are all moving in the right direction for growth," Jesser says. "Five years from now, it won't even be called telemedicine, it'll just be healthcare. Doctors' offices will be Web-enabled, mobile-enabled. That progress is going to continue to happen."

In this special report, Jesser and Judd Hollander, associate dean for strategic health initiatives at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, discuss with FierceHealthIT how each of their organizations is working to improve care access for patients via telemedicine. They talk about the hurdles they currently face, and share their thoughts on the state of the industry at large.

For more information, please click here.

RAT Group's Mark Hawker passes his PhD viva

Mark Hawker was a PhD student supervised by Dr. Bridgette Wessels (Sociological Studies) and Prof. Gail Mountain (ScHARR). He was a member of the Promoting Independence through Personalised INteractive technologies (PIPIN) network.

On Wednesday 27^th January 2016, Mark passed his PhD viva with minor corrections. Dr. Alex Dennis (Sociological Studies) and Dr. Katie Brittain (Newcastle University) were his examiners. Mark’s thesis was interdisciplinary in nature and focused on theorising user interactions with telecare and telerehabilitation systems. A number of his presentations are available on SlideShare.

Mark is now working as an Information Analyst at Airedale NHS Foundation Trust supporting their telemedicine programme. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed here.

Written by Mark Hawker

Mayo Clinic dispatches UV-emitting robots to fight drug-resistant bacteria

With superbug infections proliferating at U.S. healthcare facilities, hospitals are looking for new ways to eliminate potentially deadly bacteria. Mayo Clinic is jumping on the bandwagon, rolling out bacteria-fighting robots that use UV light to kill C. difficile.

A Minnesota-based arm of the medical organization is training its employees to use the robots, which remain stationary and dole out pulses of ultraviolet (UV) light to zap C. diff spores on exposed surfaces in a patient's room. The devices add to normal cleaning procedures by going through three cycles in different parts of the room, a process that usually takes about 25 minutes.

Click here for more.

Panasonic, Kyoto University unveil radar-based remote vital sign sensor

Kyoto University and Panasonic have revealed a novel vital-sign-sensing technology that's based

on radar. This enables the system to remotely detect heart rate and heartbeat interval without any sensors being placed on the patient's body. The accuracy of the system is on par with electrocardiographs.

"Taking measurements with sensors on the body can be stressful and troublesome, because you have to stop what you're doing," said Panasonic researcher Hiroyuki Sakai in a statement. "What we tried to make was something that would offer people a way to monitor their body in a casual and relaxed environment."

The radar-based vital sign monitoring system is expected to be part of technology enabling individuals to monitor their own health. It combines millimeter-wave spread-spectrum radar technology with a signal analysis algorithm that identifies signals from the body.

"Heartbeats aren't the only signals the radar catches," said Toru Sato, a professor of communications and computer engineering at Kyoto University. "The body sends out all sorts of signals at once, including breathing and body movement. It's a chaotic soup of information. Our algorithm differentiates all of that. It focuses on the features of waves including heart beats from the radar signal and calculates their intervals. Now that we know that remote sensing is possible, we'll need to make the measurement ability more robust so that the system can monitor subjects in various age ranges and in many different contexts."

To find out more, please click here.