Sunday, December 14, 2014

High-tech medicine: ECG from the mattress – Reuters

The “smart bed” facilitates the patient’s hospital stay. Instead of consuming by wiring the vital signs are monitored by sensors in bed. Source: AP

Aachen A thirst-sensor could remember the elderly in the future to the drink. If seniors do not take enough fluids, can be serious: cardiovascular problems, confusion, a higher fall risk. Aachen researchers have indicated designed with a sensor that can display the dehydrogenation of a people.

“Four electrodes are glued to the body. Showing the water content in the muscle, “says Steffen Leonhardt from the Helmholtz-Institute for Biomedical Engineering at RWTH Aachen University. Although the thirst sensor is not yet ready for production. But the project is an example of the trend of the so-called Geronto technology, high-tech tools with sensors for geriatric medicine to develop.

“The Geronto technology currently employed many university facilities,” observes Professor Ralf -Joachim Schulz of the Executive Board of the German Society for Geriatric Medicine. In essence, go to preserve the independence of older people. The geriatric put on an early rehabilitation with the use of tools, so Schulz, who is also chief physician of St. Mary’s Hospital in Cologne.

In a feverish cold for a long time is not any doctor immediately. This is the result of a representative survey of the “Apothekenumschau”. One in five (18.1 percent) respondents treated in such a case, even non-prescription drugs from the pharmacy or home remedies. Especially the self-employed (29.7 percent) avoid the doctor and try it once with self-medication

image. Dpa

As you can deploy sensors in everyday objects so that they provide reliable medical information of a patient can be an example to show shoe. “This way you can see how far a person is mobile. What is his weight shift. Is he fall risk “? Schulz. There is also approaches that incorporate sensors in the clothes to get about ECG data without additional effort.

Only to control a heart patient would then no longer stay in the hospital. He could go home and take control of some heart or blood pressure would run automatically in everyday life. But still the future.

“Some centers will then be able to provide patients do not have to keep in the hospital,” says Schulz. This approach is also essential in the context of demographic development. Otherwise, is the medical “monitoring” sometime even more affordable. Good for the patient: The could live again in their own homes.

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