Tech Medicine Links for 11.17.8
Monday, November 17, 2008
Joshua Schwimmer, MD, FACP, FASN
Osirix, the open-source Mac image viewer which I wrote about in my last post, now has an iPhone app. (Via Not Totally Rad.)
Parentdish has a review of their favorite iPhone apps for parents, including a baby monitor, a nursing tracker, a cookbook app with over 160,000 recipes, a white noise app, a drawing app, a diaper tracking app, a grocery list app, a dictionary of food additives, and a game for preschoolers.
For $1.99, the Pocket First Aid and CPR Guide iPhone app has dozens of articles on topics including CPR, the Heimlich maneuver, bites, bruises, burns, seizures, diabetic emergencies, "fever, nausea, blisters, and tooth loss," and "bug, snake, and mammal bites."
Enough about the iPhone for now — Phillips research has introduced the "iPill," an intelligent pill about 1 x 2.5 cm which contains a chip, battery, pH and temperature sensors, fluid pump, drug reservoir, and wireless transceiver.
Certain digestive disorders, like inflammatory bowel disease, may best be treated by targeted drug delivery at the site of activity. Medications that are given systemically, like steroids, have many potential side effects, and targeted drug delivery systems like the iPill may potentially reduce this risk by allowing a smaller dose of medication to be given locally.
Via the Web site:
Parentdish has a review of their favorite iPhone apps for parents, including a baby monitor, a nursing tracker, a cookbook app with over 160,000 recipes, a white noise app, a drawing app, a diaper tracking app, a grocery list app, a dictionary of food additives, and a game for preschoolers.
For $1.99, the Pocket First Aid and CPR Guide iPhone app has dozens of articles on topics including CPR, the Heimlich maneuver, bites, bruises, burns, seizures, diabetic emergencies, "fever, nausea, blisters, and tooth loss," and "bug, snake, and mammal bites."
Enough about the iPhone for now — Phillips research has introduced the "iPill," an intelligent pill about 1 x 2.5 cm which contains a chip, battery, pH and temperature sensors, fluid pump, drug reservoir, and wireless transceiver.
Certain digestive disorders, like inflammatory bowel disease, may best be treated by targeted drug delivery at the site of activity. Medications that are given systemically, like steroids, have many potential side effects, and targeted drug delivery systems like the iPill may potentially reduce this risk by allowing a smaller dose of medication to be given locally.
Via the Web site:
What Philips Research has developed is a pill that can be swallowed
with food or water in the normal way and is then carried along by
the normal movement of food through the gut. Knowing where the iPill
is in the gut relies on the fact that the gut’s pH value (a measure
of acidity) rises sharply upon exiting the stomach and becomes
progressively alkaline from the upper intestine onwards. In
addition, there is typically a noticeable drop in pH between the
small intestine and the colon. Armed with pH information, which is
measured by the iPill itself, and data about typical transit times
through the gut, the iPill’s location in the gut can be determined
with good accuracy. Where greater accuracy is required, external
medical imaging equipment could be introduced. Locations where the
drug needs to be released could also be determined by medical
imaging – for example, endoscopy, MRI or CT scans.
Labels: Inflammatory bowel disease, iphone, Medical imaging
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