Issue link: http://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/884277
BY STEVE BARRETT PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT SYMPULSE TELE-EMPATHY DEVICE TO PROMOTE A fuller understanding of what patients with Parkinson's disease experience, Toronto-based Klick Labs has developed the SymPulse Tele-Empathy Device. The device records a patient's electro- myogram data and transmits it wirelessly to a muscle-stimulation armband worn by another person. This marks a departure from previous approaches that sought to reproduce tremors by using mechanical vibrations. A nonpatient using the SymPulse Tele- E m p a t h y D e v i ce e f f e c t i v e ly f e e l s t h e patient's tremors. According to the com- pany, this helps nonpatients more readily understand the challenges people with Parkinson's face when they perform tasks such as using a cellphone. The ability to empathize with patients can improve care, says Jodi Halpern, MD, PhD, author of From Detached Concern to Empathy: Humanizing Medical Practice and Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley. The company says uses of the device could extend to telemedicine, with the transmission of tremors via internet to remote providers. ■ TEMPTRAQ BLUE SPARK TECHNOLOGIES has upgraded its wearable, 24-hour, wireless thermometer, TempTraq, with 48- and 72-hour versions. These iterations are geared toward health- care facilities and other clinical settings, according to a Medgadget interview of Blue Spark Technologies CEO John Gannon. TempTraq was previously used primarily in homes. The soft, single-use patch continuously monitors patient temperature. Because TempTraq is disposable, it frees caregivers from the need to sterilize a ther- mometer between uses. It also works in tandem with EHRs and hospitals' monitoring systems to enable HIPAA-compliant storage of the temperature data collected. By using the free TempTraq app, users can see both current and historical temperature information in tables or graphs, highlighting fl uctuations. Users may also set a temperature at which the patch will send an alert to a mobile device. ■ SEVO THE DRAGON VIDEO GAME I T I S C O M M O N for children to experience high levels of stress prior to surgery. With that in mind, a group of anesthesiologists, child life specialists, and Stanford University researchers and engineers has been providing children at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford innovative forms of presurgical entertainment to reduce stress. They recently added a video game, Sevo the Dragon, to the offerings available. Patients choose a dragon character as well as a food for their dragon of choice to "cook" on a screen that goes with the child from pre- op to the operating room, anesthesiologist Thomas Caruso, MD, says in a news release from Stanford Children's Health. The creature breathes fi re onto the desired edibles as children breathe into their anes- thesia masks, creating a distraction that reduces anxiety. ■ 1 2