inhaler

Wireless asthma inhaler teaches proper use

Many of us have never been properly trained on how to do or use certain things we really should be good at. Putting on condoms and installing infant car seats are just two skills that come to mind; when we get them wrong, the health consequences can be grave.

The same can be said for improper asthma inhaler use--a serious and expensive problem considering some 5,000 people visit the emergency room due to and 11 people die from asthma every day, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Let's face it: some devices could use training wheels.

Enter the T-Haler, a digital asthma inhaler training device developed by researchers at Cambridge Consultants. Patients can use the inhaler and, via interactive software linked to the wireless device, get real-time visual feedback on the areas that need improving.… Read more

AeroShot: Ditch the coffee, huff your caffeine

You willingly succumb to the seductive siren call of coffee, but all that bean shopping, grinding, and espresso machine twiddling is getting tiresome.

Never fear. Your morning pick-me-up is about to get a lot more portable when the caffeine-packing AeroShot hits the market in a few months.

Each AeroShot is about the size of a tube of lipstick and contains 100 milligrams of caffeine in the form of a fine powder. You can get between six and eight lime-flavored puffs from each cartridge. It's a little bit of molecular gastronomy in your pocket.

David Edwards, a professor at Harvard … Read more

Le Whif breathable coffee: Skip the cup

We've covered Le Whif before. In case you missed it, by merely inhaling from a tube, one supposedly gets the full-on taste of chocolate, as well as the sensory satisfaction that comes from eating it, sans the pesky calories. While I'm all for things from The Future, I'm not quite sure how I feel about this one.

Now Le Whif is back with a version that offers breathable coffee powder along with a jolt of caffeine (all in a new, biodegradable container). I'm really not sure if I want particles of caffeine going directly into my … Read more

Wireless asthma inhaler links patient, doctor

There's now an alternative to the GPS-enabled inhaler for keeping patients connected with health care providers.

Cambridge Consultants on Wednesday brought its "connected patient" concept to life with a low-cost wireless platform that lets medical devices deliver readings to a central monitor located at home, or to an online health record such as Google Health or Microsoft Health Vault.

The idea behind the technology is that patients and their health care support professionals should be connected wirelessly, via the treatment devices. First up: the demo version of Vena-enabled inhalers.

The platform, called Vena, employs two emerging wireless standards, including the Infrared-based IEEE11073 and the Bluetooth Medical Device Profile. Vena embeds the two into a single chip as the combination of them ensures compatibility of data exchanged between different types of devices and the security in the transmitting of medical data.

The demo inhalers connect to an online personal health care application via a smartphone or a computer.… Read more

First GPS-enabled asthma inhaler prototype

The concept of a GPS-enabled asthma inhaler emerged less than a month ago, and already it is very nearly a reality.

SiliconSky GPS announced Tuesday that is has successfully developed a prototype of the first-of-its-kind asthma inhaler with built-in GPS tracking.

This is the result of a collaboration between SiliconSky GPS and David Van Sickle, the University of Wisconsin researcher who first unveiled the concept. It took them six months to come up with the design.

Design was a huge challenge, as the the inhaler had to remain small enough to carry on the go and wouldn't sacrifice the … Read more

Disease detective plans GPS-enabled asthma inhaler

Thanks to David Van Sickle, we'll soon be able to track (and hopefully eliminate) recurring asthma attack outbreaks. Van Sickle, a scholar in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is working with students in the biomedical engineering program to create an asthma inhaler with a built-in GPS receiver.

The project is still in its early stages, but David's goal is to eventually map out danger zones that could be life-threatening to those stricken with the lung disease. He already has it all mapped out: "rescue inhalers" will pinpoint the location of … Read more

New Rx: Cheap pocket-size inhalers

Inhalers may not just be for asthma sufferers anymore. If an Israeli start-up called Aespironics has its way, small, cheap inhalers could soon deliver all sorts of other medications, as well.

Aespironics has developed a novel disposable dry-powder inhaler that it says has the attributes of the highest-performing inhalers but only costs a fraction of the price. The patient's breath activates a tiny turbine inside the device that scrapes or brushes micronized particles into the airflow, quickly and evenly delivering the dose to the lungs without leaving particles sticking to the inside of the mouth.

Because the turbine is … Read more

Fashion wars in asthma inhalers?

Perhaps it's an omen for our environmental future, but there's been a rising number of products aimed at asthma sufferers on the market lately. Still, who would have thought that inhalers would become fashion items?

The "Apod" started the trend with its neon-colored cases, and now the "Puffapouch" has upped the ante with its own versions, which seem a bit more urban in such styles as denim and camouflage. And Respire's magnetic inhaler case provides a fashionable way to carry the devices while keeping them free of "dust and fluff." All … Read more