Stories
Briefs: Wearables
Features: Medical
The global market for minor orthopedic replacement implants exceeded $1.5 billion in 2017. Analysts from The Business Research Company forecast the market value to grow at a...
Features: Robotics, Automation & Control
In order to operate successfully in today's fast-paced and global market, manufacturing agility and output is paramount. The field of manufacturing for the medical industry is...
Briefs: Medical
People confined to a wheelchair are still confronted with insurmountable obstacles in everyday life — even in today’s more wheelchair-accessible society. There are often no elevators in a building...
R&D: Medical
Foot Device Controls Video Game Action
A group of graduate students from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, devised a sandal-like controller that allows a video game player to control the on-screen action with his feet. The team — dubbed GEAR, for Game Enhancing Augmented Reality — created the device for amputees or those with...
Features: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Data drives results. Today, medical devices give feedback and insight like never before. Advances in engineering medical devices has led to smarter devices, improved...
R&D: Medical
Low-Cost Prosthetic Knee Mimics Walking Motion
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology designed a low-cost prosthetic knee that mimics normal walking motion. The MIT team's prototype generates a torque profile similar to that of able-bodied knees, using only simple mechanical elements like springs and dampers. The team is...
Briefs: Medical
Humans grow to be quite efficient at walking. Simulations of human locomotion show that walking on level ground at a steady speed should theoretically require no power input at...
Applications: Manufacturing & Prototyping
It’s not always easy to walk in someone else’s shoes. It’s even more difficult if those shoes belong to a person with an artificial leg. However, that’s exactly...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
A University of Texas at Dallas professor applied robot control theory to enable powered prosthetics to dynamically respond to the wearer’s environment and help amputees walk. As reported...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Diabetes is the leading cause of limb loss, accounting for more than 65,000 amputations a year nationwide. In addition, there were more than 1,500 major limb amputations from US battle injuries...
R&D: Materials
A soft, wearable device that mimics the muscles, tendons, and ligaments of the lower leg could aid in the rehabilitation of patients with foot-ankle disorders such as drop foot, said Yong-Lae Park,...
R&D: Medical
The ankle is a complex joint, supported by muscle, tendon, and bones, and maintaining stability and locomotion. Characterizing how it works, however, is not so straightforward says a group of researchers...
Mission Accomplished: Imaging
When you think of the word cave, you might think of a dark, hidden place, right? Not anymore. The CAVE™ and CAVE2™, developed by the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at...
Articles: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Worldwide an estimated 185 million people use a wheelchair daily. A company based in Auckland, New Zealand, has developed an innovative robotic technology that helps people with mobility...
Applications: Medical
The lack of gravity in space reduces the mechanical loading seen by both the muscles and bones of the body, especially those related to standing and moving. The body adapts to reduced...
Briefs: Materials
Formerly used only in the aerospace arena, Flexeon is a radical departure from the rigid carbon fiber materials found in most prosthetic feet. It’s a specially- formulated reinforced...
Features: Electronics & Computers
The ever-increasing functional capabilities of emerging medical de vices have precipitated new requirements for the multi-function foot controls used to operate the equipment. These foot...
Mission Accomplished: Medical
According to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center, somewhere between 236,000 to 327,000 people in the US are living with serious spinal cord injuries. About 155,000 have...
Features: Medical
Dave King
Kelowna, BC, Canada
The Medical winner was simply named Prosthetic Leg Connector. Its simplistic name belies the amount of thought and care that went into the...
Briefs: Medical
Improving Balance Function Using Low Levels of Electrical Stimulation of the Balance Organs
Crewmembers returning from long-duration space flight face significant challenges due to the microgravity-induced inappropriate adaptations in balance/sensorimotor function. The Neuroscience Laboratory at JSC is developing a method based on stochastic...
Briefs: Medical
Kinesthotic© orthotics are made to adapt to the foot by replicating, within footwear, an explicit quality of beach-sand surface dynamics on whatever surface the footwear...
Features: Medical
Medical technology is currently capable of treating such physical hardships as loss of limb, eyelid paralysis, and chronic osteoarthritis – but researchers are...
Top Stories
Briefs: Wearables

Designing Feature-Rich Wearable Health and Fitness Devices
INSIDER: Wearables

Self-Powered Ingestible Sensor Opens New Avenues for Gut Research
Briefs: Medical

Extrusion Process Enables Synthetic Material Growth
Features: Medical

Enabling a Diabetic to Run the World Marathon Challenge
INSIDER: Wearables

COVID-19 Smart Patch Vaccine Measures Effectiveness
Features: Medical

Ask the Expert
Ralph Bright on the Power of Power Cords

Understanding power system components and how to connect them correctly is critical to meeting regulatory requirements and designing successful electrical products for worldwide markets. Interpower’s Ralph Bright defines these requirements and explains how to know which cord to select for your application.
Webcasts
Webinars: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Developing the Ultimate Medical Sensor Technology
On-Demand Webinars: Medical

Precision Pulsed High Voltage: Electroporation Enabling Medical and Life...
On-Demand Webinars: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Product Development Lifecycle Management: Optimizing Quality, Cost, and Speed...
Webinars: Materials

Medical Device Biofilms: Slimy, Sticky, Stubborn, and Serious
On-Demand Webinars: Medical

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: Making Medical Devices Smarter
On-Demand Webinars: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Inside Story
Rapid Precision Prototyping Program Speeds Medtech Product Development
Rapid prototyping technologies play an important role in supporting new product development (NPD) by companies that are working to bring novel and innovative products to market. But in advanced industries where products often make use of multiple technologies, and where meeting a part’s exacting tolerances is essential, speed without precision is rarely enough. In such advanced manufacturing—including the medical device and surgical robotics industries — the ability to produce high-precision prototypes early in the development cycle can be critical for meeting design expectations and bringing finished products to market efficiently.
Trending Stories
Technology Leaders: Regulations/Standards

First, Do No Harm: Changing Strategies to Prove Your Medical Device Is Safe