Applications

Robotic Exoskeleton Vastly Improves Quality of Life

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...

Optical Design of a Prototype Cardioport with Imaging

Nikolay V. Vasilyev, MD, and Pedro J. del Nido, MD, in the Department of Cardiac Surgery, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, are developing novel, prototype...

Treatment for Space Atrophy Finding Application on Earth

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...

FEM Simulation Speeds Analysis of Durability for Replacement Joints

The demand for joint replacement surgery is mushrooming and, along with it, the demand for replacement joints that endure longer with less maintenance. Younger people who...

Custom Compound for Catheter Combines Flexibility, Radiopacity, and Color

Plásticos y Materias Primas S.A. (PyMPSA), part of the PiSA Farmacéutica Mexicana group, manufactures medical devices and components for use in hospitals and healthcare...

Valve Selection for Disposable Devices: Beyond the Specifications

Valves are critical components of many disposable medical devices. They are responsible for controlling the movement of fluid, which could be a pharmaceutical or nutritional...

Injection Molding Principles for Bioabsorbable Polymer Materials

The use of bioabsorbable polymer materials in modern medicine is a major innovation. Known for their unique ability to safely exist in the body and eventually absorb without...

Physician Uses Multiphysics Simulation to Improve Dialyzer Designs

Steven Conrad, MD, PhD, an emergency and critical care physician at Louisiana State University Health Science Center, New Orleans, is not your typical physician. When he’s not...

Reverse-Engineering Design Corrects Performance Failures in Laser Flow Cytometers

With numerous developments in medical equipment and software, physicians no longer have to wait three to five days for lab results for accurate and timely blood...

Laser Technologies Support Diverse Applications in Medical & BioPhotonics

Today, a wide array of laser technologies support an amazingly diverse range of medical and biomedical applications. In fact, it would take a large volume to discuss all...

Eye on the Medical Device Industry: Technology Is Key to Compliance

The medical device industry is a highly competitive arena, and earning market recognition depends on the ability to keep innovating. To remain competitive, medical device...

Passive Thermal Management Options for EMS Devices

High-frequency pulsed electromagnetic stimulation (EMS) devices are more powerful and effective than ever before. These devices are finding applications in many areas, including as treatments...

Move to Rapid Prototyping Cut Costs by Millions

Instrumentation Laboratory, Bedford, MA, is a worldwide manufacturer of in vitro diagnostic instruments, related reagents, and controls for use in hospitals and independent clinical laboratories....

Machining Critical Features into Stamped Parts Can Be Cost Effective

Producing basic features by stamping, and then incorporating more critical features by computer numerical control (CNC) machining can result in a much lower cost part than a...

Dip Molded Products Play Vital Role in Medical Equipment Design

Dip molding may not be a term that readily comes to mind when surgeons begin complicated procedures. Yet without this sophisticated, highly controllable process, many medical...

Electronic Access for Medical Equipment

The need for physical security in the health care industry is no longer limited to grounds, buildings, and rooms. Today, security must extend down to medical enclosures, including cabinets, dispensing...

Servo Control Improves Accuracy and Operating Range of Medical Pumping Applications

In 2006, engineers from the Thermo Fisher Barrington division in Barrington, IL, were faced with a number of challenges to improve their highly successful...

Optical Fiber Performance in High-Power Applications

Silica optical fibers are used more and more for delivering laser power in numerous medical applications. Many therapies require the reliable delivery of high laser power to ablate tissue. In...

Formally Verifying Heart Pump Software with SPARK and Echo

The Ada-based SPARK programming language and toolset offer strong guarantees about the behavior of software systems. This powerful core underpins Echo, a complete approach to practical...

Risk Assessment for Power Supplies to Comply with IEC 60601-1 3rd Edition

For medical device OEMs seeking compliance to the 3rd Edition of IEC 60601-1 for their power supplies, what is quite clear by now are the regional dates for enforcement,...

First Totally Implantable Hearing Device

Hearing loss can occur as a result of aging, genetic predisposition, an illness or injury, or over the course of years of exposure to loud sounds, which cause intense vibrations that damage the hair...

Configuring Complex Part Designs for Prosthetic Devices

ToughWare Prosthetics, an engineering and design group dedicated to developing innovative new assistive technologies, helps satisfy the global need for prosthetic devices that are...

Seal Improves Life of Implantable Pump, and of Patient

When engineers at a Swiss medical device company began designing an implantable low-flow pump to treat the condition known as ascites, or peritoneal cavity fluid, they knew they were on the...

Therapeutic Laser Systems Improve Quality of Life and Save in Healthcare

Global population aging is unprecedented: the global population of children under age five is expected to fall by 49 million by midcentury, while the number of people over...

Benefits of LED Cured Adhesives in Medical Applications

Selecting an adhesive is often a difficult task because it involves give and take between the end-use and manufacturing requirements. When it comes to bonding applications in the medical...

Finding Balance Between Orthopedic Implant Coatings

The school of thought surrounding most orthopedic implant coatings is that the more porous and “rough” the surface is, the better the implant (hip, knee, etc.) will grip to, and connect...

Testing Out a Practical Alternative to PVC Tubing

PVC has long been the material of choice for tubing. Increasingly, however, issues such as those focusing on the phthalate plasticizers used to make PVC flexible are causing some tubing...

Project Aims to Improve upon Silicone Rubber Speech Valve

Morgan Technical Ceramics (MTC) (Cleveland, OH) worked with the UK-based University of Hull to develop a new valve used to restore vocal function for patients with throat cancer. The new...

Sensors Hit the Spot for Sleeker, Smaller Devices

A young engineer recently recounted that his Senior Design professor would frequently repeat this mantra: “A good engineer designs to spec, to budget, and to deadline.” Therefore, it came as...