Tag Archives: Medicine

10 Best Groundbreaking Medical Devices And Technologies Of 2024

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Looking after our health is a necessity, and proactive action and a mindset of preparedness are always necessary for dealing with medical emergencies. By taking the right precaution, and being prepared always, we can handle a medical emergency to the best of our ability. And the medical industry has been coming up with ingenious innovations, that are completely transforming the healthcare game. Designers have been coming up with new and improved, life-saving medical designs that not only boost medical care but also relieve some of the pressure from our tireless medical force. From an award-winning inflatable stretcher design to a copper jacket that can protect from diseases – these innovations are upping the medical arena.

1. Pinsoft

Pinsoft James Dyson Award Winning Attachment for Needle Phobia

Pinsoft James Dyson Award Winning Attachment for Needle Phobia

Called the Pinsoft, this James Dyson National Award-winning design is an injection attachment that helps people with a fear of needles, or Trypanophobia. The Pinsoft is placed around an injection, and it features multiple round-tipped prongs that confuse your skin as the needle pricks through it. It causes a gentle stimulation which distracts your mind, so you can’t differentiate between the touch of the prongs and the needle. By the time you realize what’s going on, you’ve received your shot!

2. Inflatable Stretcher

Named the Inflatable Stretcher, this innovative design by Yu-Hsin Wu is intended to be a novel and refreshing upgrade to the typical stretcher. This upgraded stretcher allows patients to be carried from the site of the accident to the hospital in a safe, secure, and protected manner. This stretcher protects the patient and cushions them the way you would wrap something or someone up in some bubble wrap!

3. Jelly Medicine

This revolutionary jelly medicine makes swallowing medicines super easy! It also deals with the issue of access to clean water, which is pretty recurrent in poor countries. When water is contaminated, it is harmful for people to consume medicines with this water. But this innovative medicine design is water-free! it is the same size as a sip of water, so patients don’t need to drink any water when consuming the medicine. “Poor hygiene and poor water quality are causes of many diseases, including cholera and typhoid fever. When taking medicine in such conditions, there is a risk of acquiring additional illness if the medication is taken with unsanitary water. Jelly medicine eliminates this hygienic problem because it can be easily swallowed without water,” said the designer.

4. BeamO

At CES 2024, Withings introduced the BeamO – an all-in-one diagnostic health monitor designed to be used at home. It is a USB-shaped 4-in-1 multiscope that will keep a check on the vitals of your lungs, heart, and temperature. This medical-grade tool is inspired by the popularity of the contactless thermometer. BeamO elevates the process of taking in core vitals from the comfort of one’s own home. The data will provide a complete overview of the patient’s overall health, or offer warning of any potential areas of concern.

5. Cadence

Say hello to Cadence – a conceptual design featuring a pharmacy-grade pill sorting plate that makes organizing pills a breeze. The innovative product sorts out your pills for you and places them in the right section. The specially designed tray is equipped with an opening for one day only, so you don’t misplace pills and add them inside compartments that are already full for the day. You can also place all the pills on the tray, and then use the built-in spatula provided to move the required pills to the opening.

6. Full Metal Jacket

Meet the Full Metal Jacket – an innovative jacket made from a germ-repelling metallic textile. Designed by Vollebak, the Full Metal Jacket is made from a fabric with woven strands of copper, making it quite breathable and flexible. The jacket includes almost 11 kilometers of copper, and it depends on copper’s ability to kill any bacteria or viruses that may come in contact with it. It features three separate layers – one made from a lacquered copper yarn, using a process that takes a whole week.

7. Smart Prosthetic Arm

Called the Smart Prosthetic Arm, this wearable design concept merges AI and smart tech into a futuristic prosthetic limb. Prosthetic arms are often designed to resemble an actual limb, often adopting the user’s body and skin tone, however, this arm is designed to showcase its techy essence. It is created to normalize the usage of prosthetic limbs in common spaces, building familiarity and easy acceptance of it. Designed in optic white and slate black, a digital interface has been integrated around the prosthetic arm.

8. MicroMed

MicroMed Portable Medicine Dispenser Colors

MicroMed Medicine Dispenser

Named MicroMed, this conceptual product design lets you customize your medicine doses. It is designed to be an advanced med dispenser since the doses are based on the user’s needs and characteristics. You need to input data onto a companion app which then outputs the correct dose. MicroMed also eliminates blister packaging, which tends to be quite wasteful. This serves as an eco-friendly design, making way for a more sustainable future. It is equipped with a refillable cartridge system, which is helpful for those taking medicine every day.

9. Pimoji

This unique concept is called the Pimoji and it basically involves designing each pill around an emoji-esque representation of the issue or ailment it is trying to cute! Heart meds have been shaped like hearts, while toothache tables are made to look like teeth. The different pills come in adorable little shapes, helping you identify which medicine you’re taking, and for which particular ailment. It adds a fun and whimsical element to medicine consumption, making you feel like you’re having fun-shaped candies instead of medication!

10. Wethm

Say hello to Wethm – a tiny device that forms gentle vibrations of a train ride to slow down your chaotic mind. This process is known as cardiovascular synchronization, and it utilizes soft and gentle sounds to calm us down and lull our mind and body to sleep. The accessory is simple and yet effective, ensuring we enter a deeper and more peaceful state of steel. The device also uses a soft buzzing to slowly and patiently wake us up, helping us feel fresher and more recharged to handle the day.

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Perelel’s $10M Donation Advances Maternal Health Research and Supports Prenatal Care

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Every expectant mother embarks on a journey filled with joy, anticipation, and, understandably, a dash of apprehension. The responsibility of nurturing a new life brings with it a plethora of considerations, chief among them being maternal health. Recognizing this critical aspect, Perelel, a maternal health startup, has pledged a substantial $10 million towards closing the healthcare research gap, underscoring their commitment to maternal well-being.

Designer: Perelel

The journey of Perelel traces back to 2020 when Victoria Thain Gioia, Alex Taylor, and Dr. Banafsheh Bayati co-founded the company with a mission to provide expectant mothers with superior prenatal vitamin options. The inception of Perelel was deeply personal, as Gioia’s experience with her daughter’s cleft lip shed light on the critical link between folic acid deficiency and prenatal health. Meanwhile, Taylor’s own pregnancy journey underscored the challenges of researching and sourcing quality prenatal vitamins. With Dr. Bayati’s expertise as an obstetrician-gynecologist, Perelel formulated a line of prenatal vitamins tailored to each trimester, using high-quality ingredients to optimize maternal and fetal health.

However, Perelel’s vision extended beyond mere commercial success; it was deeply rooted in philanthropy. Today, the company fulfills its promise by announcing a substantial $10 million donation, a testament to its ethos of giving back. This donation will be directed towards two esteemed organizations: Magee-Womens Research Institute, dedicated to pioneering research in women’s health and reproductive biology, and Good+Foundation, which addresses family poverty and supports new mothers.

The significance of this donation extends beyond monetary value. Perelel’s contribution will be distributed over three years as in-kind product donations and grants, ensuring tangible support for vital research initiatives. This announcement comes on the heels of Perelel’s successful fundraising efforts, including a recent $6 million Series A funding from Unilever Ventures, supplemented by $4.7 million in seed funding last year.

For Perelel, giving back is not an afterthought but a fundamental principle. Victoria Thain Gioia emphasizes, “From day one, giving was a very clear line item for us.” The company meticulously integrates giving into its financial models, allocating a percentage of sales toward philanthropic endeavors. Alex Taylor echoes this sentiment, highlighting Perelel’s commitment to scaling its giving as the company expands its reach. “Vitamins keep the lights on,” Taylor affirms, “but we stand for so much more.”

As Perelel continues to scale its operations and influence, its unwavering commitment to bridging healthcare research gaps remains steadfast. With each sale, the company not only illuminates the path to maternal well-being but also catalyzes transformative change in women’s health research. Through their actions, Perelel epitomizes the profound impact that businesses can wield when driven by a sense of purpose and compassion.

In a landscape where niche yet crucial topics like maternal health often go overlooked or insufficiently addressed, Perelel’s compassionate dedication stands out as a beacon of hope. It’s a refreshing sight to witness empathetic individuals recognizing the importance of this sector, and it’s even more inspiring that it’s predominantly led by women, adding an empowering cherry on top to their noble cause, illuminating a path toward a healthier, more equitable future for all mothers and their precious babies.

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Smart pill dispenser concept safeguards your medicine from kids

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Pill boxes and dispensers are becoming more common inside households, especially those with members that require daily medication for their health. The simplest designs are just containers with compartments for different days, but there are also more sophisticated machines that try to automate that routine so that you won’t forget to take your pills. Unfortunately, neither of these solutions takes into account unauthorized or accidental access to those medicines, especially by children for whom those drugs could very well be fatal. This smart pill dispenser concept tries to bring all those concerns together, offering not only a convenient tool but also a safe one for users as well as the people around them.

Designer: Anthony Chupp

The tedious work of taking medication regularly actually starts at the moment you allocate them for each day. Pill boxes and dispensers make it easier to dispense those pills and capsules, but they don’t exactly make it easy to fill them up in the first place. You might drop a pill or two on the floor in the process or, worse, drop them in the wrong compartment, forcing you to lose time trying to double-check and correct that mistake. We’re still a few steps away from a completely automated process that segregates and distributes those pills without human intervention, so any aid toward this part of the process will be significant, even if it still involves manually dropping in pills.

That’s the kind of help that the Cadence concept design offers, using a pharmacy-grade pill sorting plate that makes it easier to put pills where they belong. The specially-designed tray only has an opening for a single day so you don’t accidentally drop medicine inside compartments that have already been filled up. You can also just pour your pills on the tray and then use the built-in spatula to move the exact kind and number toward the opening.

The smart pill dispenser has 30 slots arranged like spokes around a wheel. When it’s time to dispense the day’s dosage, it releases the pills down a dropper shaped to guide the pieces into a cup or glass for collection. And then it turns the wheel so that tomorrow’s pills will be ready for the next round. The button to dispense the pills for the day is located at the top, out of the reach of kids, while locks prevent those same children from accidentally getting into the dispenser itself and scattering its contents.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a smart pill dispenser if it didn’t have any hi-tech features. When connected to a mobile device, Cadence will be able to keep track of your intake, calculating how many doses you have left or how many you’ve missed in that month. The dispenser itself has a small digital clock in the corner to take note of the time, and an LED light strip around the box that gently catches your attention when it comes time to take your medicine. Cadence isn’t exactly a sophisticated smart device, but it’s this balance of digital and analog methods that actually makes the design concept even more effective.

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Smart device reminds you to take your meds when you have to

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When I was diagnosed with a certain condition a couple of years ago, it also comes with the tedious (and expensive) “habit” of drinking all kinds of medication. While in my head I know I have to drink these meds at certain times of the day, there are still a lot of times that I actually forget. Sure, we can always add reminders on our phones but sometimes we just snooze those reminders. Or that may just be me. But in reality, people still need all kinds of reminders to take their meds.

Designer: Rume Studio

Ownum Pod is a concept for a device that may be the first one with a smart reminder for medication. This isn’t just an app that can give you notifications when it’s time to take your meds. It’s actually a smart device where you can put your medicine bottle in it and then configure the app to give you reminders when to take it. There is a precision scale inside the device so it knows whether or not you took the correct dosage of your pills or tablets.

The pod itself looks like a smartphone or device charger with a space in the middle to put the medicine bottle. It probably has a standard bottle where you can just store your respective medicine in. And if you’re like me that takes several different meds, you can interconnect multiple pods with just one power cable / charging connection. It has a rubber base and is also modular so you can place double or multiple pods together.

The UI and function seems pretty simple based on the product renders, although there wasn’t much explanation or visuals of the connected app. I don’t know if something like this can help discipline someone like me into taking their meds regularly. But having an option like this may be helpful.

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