We’ve all seen or heard commercials from the American Stroke Association (ASA) encouraging people who suspect they might be having a stroke to call 9-1-1 right away, because “time lost is brain lost.”. Stroke is the No. 5 cause of death in the United States, killing nearly 130,000 people a year. That’s one in every 20 deaths, according to the ASA. But even if you survive a stroke, you are not even close to being out of the woods.
Before he was an “Outdoor Man” marketing sporting goods in the Rocky Mountains as the Last Man Standing, Tim (“The Tool Man”) Taylor did most of his work indoors — on a little show called Home Improvement. Fortunately for the often accident-prone know-it-all, he had a competent sidekick in the mild-mannered Al Borland, who often knew a better way to get things done properly.
When incorporating human factors into medical device development, conducting user testing and gathering feedback from the device’s target end users is critical. To do this properly, the end user groups must be appropriately defined.
Problem solving is what drives the medical device industry. For OEMs to successfully produce medical solutions, they often need to overcome manufacturing challenges. Whether manufacturing a micro component in-house or working with another molding supplier, sometimes OEMs hit roadblocks.
Unique manufacturability and production properties in plastics are increasingly being utilized in the development of medical devices and medical packaging. In the application of any material in a medical device, it must always meet stringent safety requirements and be biocompatible. This article discusses material biocompatibility, as well as the tested biocompatibility of plastics in medical devices.
Liquid crystal polymers (LCPs) are unusual molecules that have been adapted to a variety of uses, including in the development of catheters in the medical industry. This article discusses the use of LCPs and how ZEUS has exploited their unique properties to produce an advanced monofilament fiber for the construction of a fully MRI-compatible catheter.
ZEUS has improved upon PTFE extrusion technology by producing an ultra-thin-walled PTFE catheter liner for the Sub-Lite-Wall® StreamLiner™ series. These liners make for a sturdier, more robust finished device while retaining sufficient functional properties such as torquability pushability, and flexibility.
Insight on how engineers can gain an understanding of how the process works and how they can participate productively.
Since our inception, complex thermoplastic injection molding has been a core competency at SMC. We specialize in programs that rely upon complex geometry and challenging quality requirements. Using “scientific molding” practices we assure premium components with each press cycle. With our vast array of molding options, we are confident we can align a process that best fits your medical device.
Precision Optics Corporation, or POC, was formed over 30 years ago with the purpose of designing, developing, and realizing advanced optical applications and for volume production of specialized medical optical systems.
Hamamatsu’s Xenon flash lamps feature a long lifetime, low heat output, a high intensity output, and high stability. They’re ideal for use in blood analyzers and in instruments for in vitro diagnostics.
FMI is committed to providing the highest quality of silicone components for medical devices. Using the highest process controls alongside the most rigorous quality tools, FMI is able to ensure patient safety and 100 percent inspection of every single component before it ships.
The AS5216 electronics board is available in two configurations and is a multipurpose controller with the flexibility to interface with all of our AvaBench configurations. The AS5216 supports USB and RS-232 communication standard and is also available with a wireless communication module. The controller has digital and analog input/output capability as a standard option as well as an on board field programmable gate array (FPGA) which is used to control the timing of the board.
Medical device design and development is the cyclical process of creating a device for a specific task or set of tasks, and then continuously reevaluating its effectiveness and improving upon it until the device reaches obsolescence. Design and development begins with ideation and the creation of a concept that, if found to be both fiscally and clinically viable, is then designed, engineered, and prototyped. This preclinical period includes bench testing — accomplished through simulated use of the product — and animal testing, along with any necessary redesign work.
Throughout the process, the proposed medical device, and the process by which it will be manufactured, is examined for flaws that may negatively impact the device’s safety, market viability, regulatory acceptance, customer satisfaction, usability, or profitability. Any shortcomings are corrected, and the improvements applied to the final design. Due to the wireless connectivity capabilities of many modern medical devices, cybersecurity and interoperability also must be incorporated into the design. Clinical testing is conducted, using human subjects, to further expose flaws and confirm product strengths. Once both the product design and the manufacturing process have been validated and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), production and commercialization of a device may begin.
Each year, nearly 800,000 people in the U.S. experience a stroke, and almost 90 percent of those are ischemic strokes in which a clot cuts off blood flow to part of the brain. To prevent further injury, blood flow to the brain must be restored as quickly as possible.
Empatica Inc has received clearance from the FDA for Embrace, its award-winning smart watch. Embrace uses AI (advanced machine learning) to monitor for the most dangerous kinds of seizures, known as "grand mal" or "generalized tonic-clonic" seizures, and send an alert to summon caregivers' help.
For the first time, researchers have fabricated sensing elements known as fiber Bragg gratings inside optical fibers designed to dissolve completely inside the body.
A team of scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has developed a way to wirelessly deliver light into deep regions of the body to activate light-sensitive drugs for photodynamic therapy (PDT).
Extremely fine porous structures with tiny holes - resembling a kind of sponge at nano level - can be generated in semiconductors.
Tyndall and Sanmina Corporation have announced a research collaboration, which will focus on the development of a novel wireless technology for a commercial wrist-worn health-monitoring platform.
When studying diseases or testing potential drug therapies, researchers usually turn to cultured cells on Petri dishes or experiments with lab animals, but recently, researchers have been developing a different approach: small, organ-on-a-chip devices that mimic the functions of human organs, serving as potentially cheaper and more effective tools.
Cells communicate with each other through a number of different mechanisms. Some of these mechanisms are well-known: in animals, for example, predatory threats can drive the release of norepinephrine, a hormone that travels through the bloodstream and triggers heart and muscle cells to initiate a "fight-or-flight" response.
Each year 40,000 babies in the U.S. are born with a congenital heart defect, often caused by a defective heart valve, which is estimated to account for 8,000 to 13,000 new cases in the U.S. alone.
A team of researchers at DGIST has recently developed a technology which enables to acquire a high resolution mass spectrometry imaging in micrometer size of live biological samples without chemical pretreatment in the general atmospheric pressure environment.
