Kickbee: Not the youngest Twitter user any more February 10, 2010
Posted by Bertalan Meskó in Health, Health 2.0, Invention, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Web 2.0, eHealth, twitter.add a comment
When I first talked about Kickbee, it created a buzz about how this method could be utilized in health management. In a nutshell, Corey Menscher, the father of kickbee, probably the youngest Twitter user, has designed a kick sensor which monitors his pregnant wife’s belly, and generates a fetal tweet whenever the baby kicks.
Now Kickbee is ready to get to your home. A nice example about how a good idea can be converted into a product.
The Kickbee is a stretchable band worn by a pregnant mother. Vibration sensors are attached directly to the band, and are triggered by movement underneath. The band and electronics are covered in a soft fabric cover for design and comfort. A microcontroller in the garment captures the movement and transmits the signals wirelessly to a computer running a custom application.
Medicine and Web 2.0 Elective Course: New Semester! February 9, 2010
Posted by Bertalan Meskó in Health 2.0, Medical education, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Medicine 2.0 Course, Web 2.0.add a comment
Do you want to know
- how to save time online?
- how to be up-to-date in your field of interest?
- how to use Facebook safely as a medical student?
The 4th semester of the world’s first university credit course focusing on how medical students should use the tools of the world wide web will launch on the 25th of February at 5:00 PM at the Lecture Hall of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Debrecen, Medical School and Health Science Center.
10 lectures about medical blogs, virtual worlds, the advantages and dangers of Facebook, Wikipedia, medical search engines and more with interactive case presentations and practical examples. See last semester’s summary for more information about the slideshows.
You can register on Neptun (AOG359901), or contact the Department of Behavioural Sciences (52/255-406).
Speaker: Dr. Bertalan Mesko
Coordinator: Dr. Janos Kollar
Cyberchondria, Top Medical Trends for 2010 and Other News February 7, 2010
Posted by Bertalan Meskó in Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Video, Web 2.0, What's on the web?.add a comment
Microsoft’s Ryen White and Eric Horvitz conducted a study into the growing condition dubbed “cyberchondria,” a phenomenon that describes anxieties about health instigated by reading information online. They compared the results of online searches for information about common symptoms including “headache,” “muscle twitches,” and “chest pain” between generic and medical search engines. The results alone are enough to give you palpitations.
- Japanese group introduces wearable ‘human recorder system’ (Engadget): You affix this directly to your chest that lets you monitor heart rate, body surface temperature and movement.
- 10 major challenges that confront medical education over the next decade (Kevin, MD): One solution might be Med20course.com
- Video Blogging Med School (Doctor Anonymous): Not only a few videos, but a lot of videos day by day between June and January.
Patientslikeme.com at TEDMED February 5, 2010
Posted by Bertalan Meskó in Health 2.0, Medicine 2.0, Ted Talks, Video.add a comment
Jamie Heywood, co-founder of Patientslikeme.com talked about his brother and the inspiration behind one of the biggest patient-driven community sites at TEDMED09.
Gene Screen 2010 – Call for Submissions February 5, 2010
Posted by Bertalan Meskó in Video, Web 2.0, genetics.add a comment
Genetic Alliance is now open to receive submissions of all types and genres of film but it must be related to genetics and health. The deadline is May 31, 2010.
Genetic Alliance will provide cash awards to all films selected for Gene Screen. First prize will receive $250 plus a travel stipend (reimbursed) of up to $250 to travel to Washington, DC, to participate in the Q&A session after the screening. An additional $250 will be split among the other selected films (award amounts will depend on how many films are selected). All filmmakers of selected films are invited to participate in the Q&A, but only the first prize film will receive a travel stipend.
Please send submissions to:
Genetic Alliance
Gene Screen
4301 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Suite 404
Washington, DC 20008-2369
Fitness and Web 2.0: The Collection February 5, 2010
Posted by Bertalan Meskó in Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, PeRSSonalized Medicine, Video, Web 2.0, Webicina, eHealth.1 comment so far
Empowered patients have been sharing different health parameters such as sleeping habits, diets, blood pressure, etc. with each other in San Francisco for years. I’m talking about Quantified Self, one of the most interesting health-related projects ever. This and other similarly outstanding fitness tools and solutions are collected in Webicina’s Fitness and Web 2.0 guide.
Let’s see other examples as well. Here is Weight Watchers, a community site for those who would like to lose weight by the help of others. They have been assisting millions of people for 45 years.
There are plenty of Youtube channels focusing on fitness, but Exercise TV is one of the best ones:
Regarding fitness podcasts, I should mention Geekfit that helps geeks and other like minded people in the area of fitness.
In the world of fitness blogs, Yoni Freedhoff manages a great blog focusing on obesity medicine.
When it comes to medical search engines, WolframAlpha lets you compute body-mass index or how much calorie you can burn during different types of exercises.
You can find hundreds of examples on Fitness and Web 2.0. We also help you follow the best fitness blogs, journals, news sites and Twitter users on PeRSSonalized Fitness:
SoundBite: Hearing Aid on Your Teeth February 3, 2010
Posted by Bertalan Meskó in Biotechnology, Innovation, Invention, Medicine, Surgery.add a comment
I love innovation in healthcare.
For people with conductive hearing loss, Bone Anchored Hearing Aids that are implanted surgically use the skull to transmit sound to the inner ear. SoundBite bypasses this problem.
SoundBite hearing system is the world’s first and only non-surgical and removable hearing solution designed to imperceptibly transmit sound via the teeth to help people who are essentially deaf in one ear regain spatial hearing ability and rejoin the conversation of life. It employs a well-established principle called bone conduction to deliver clear, high quality sound to the inner ear. Nearly invisible when worn, the SoundBite system consists of an easy to insert and remove ITM (in-the-mouth) hearing device – which is custom made to fit around either the upper left or right back teeth – and a small microphone unit worn behind the ear. No modifications to the teeth are required.
Source of Photo: Sonitus Medical
Reference: Preliminary Evaluation of a Novel Bone-Conduction Device for Single-Sided Deafness
More pictures here…
PeRSSonalized Midwifery: Dynamic Collection of Selected Resources February 2, 2010
Posted by Bertalan Meskó in Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, PeRSSonalized Medicine, Web 2.0, Webicina.1 comment so far
PeRSSonalized Medicine is an easy-to-use, free aggregator of quality medical information that lets you select your favourite resources and read the latest news and articles about a medical specialty or a medical condition in one personalized place.
The newest category is dedicated to PeRSSonalized Midwifery containing quality news sites, blogs, peer-reviewed journals, Twitter users and Youtube channels.
Many thanks to Sarah Stewart, a health professional (midwife) and great blogger with nearly 30 years of clinical and education experience who helped a lot by sending me tons of quality midwifery resources.
Some reasons why PeRSSonalized Medicine is unique:
- You can search in the database. It means you will find medical information only from a quality selected portion of the world wide web.
- You can personalize any of the sections.
- You can also receive the newest Pubmed articles focusing on your search term. Just insert your field of interest, a therapy, a condition, etc. and click Search. Then you can add the newly created box to your personalized medical “journal”.
- It is a community-based project. Please let us know which quality resources should be added to the database.
Health Tweeder: Disease Specific Discussions on Twitter February 1, 2010
Posted by Bertalan Meskó in Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Visualization, Web 2.0, twitter.2 comments
The number of health-related Twitter users or discussions is still growing and while it’s easy to find Twitter messages focusing on a medical condition or specialty (search.twitter.com), visualizing these tiny bits of information is incredibly hard. Health Tweeder, managed by Pixels&Pills, aims to fill this gap.
Using the laboratory that is social media and Twitter, we’re visually and metaphorically using petri dishes to culture cells of dialogue on specific disease states. Each cell in a ptri dish represents a distinct tweet that has been gathered using relevant disease search terms, hashtags, and people we’ve identified.
If you select a petri dish, you will see the related Twitter messages:
Leukemia and Web 2.0: Selected Online Resources February 1, 2010
Posted by Bertalan Meskó in Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, PeRSSonalized Medicine, Web 2.0, Webicina, e-patient, eHealth.add a comment
Webicina, the first medical web 2.0 guidance service, comes up with 3-4 selections every week in order to assist empowered patients in their health management. The newest one is dedicated to Leukemia and Web 2.0. Such a selection is a free comprehensive resource containing all the web 2.0 tools from quality blogs and communities to online slideshows and mobile applications. It was designed to help patients by providing medically reliable information and websites.
Please take a look at the table of contents:
- News and Information on Leukemia
- Leukemia in the Blogosphere
- Leukemia Podcasts and Intrerviews
- Leukemia Community Sites, FaceBook Groups and Forums
- Microblogging: Twitter and Friendfeed
- Leukemia Wikis
- Leukemia videos, animations and videocasts
- Mobile Applications
- Social Bookmarking
- Medical Search Engines
- Slideshows about Leukemia
PeRSSonalized Leukemia is an easy-to-use, free aggregator of quality medical information that lets you select your favourite resources and read the latest news and articles about leukemia in one personalized place.
Some reasons why PeRSSonalized Medicine is unique:
- You can search in the database. It means you will find medical information only from a quality selected portion of the world wide web.
- You can personalize any of the sections.
- You can also receive the newest Pubmed articles focusing on your search term. Just insert your field of interest, a therapy, a condition, etc. and click Search. Then you can add the newly created box to your personalized medical “journal”.
- It’s meant to be a community-based project so we are open to suggestions. Please let us know which quality resources should be added to the database.
