The March Newsletter in Summary
By Nitish Thakor
This month we bring you a video clip and three articles we think you will find interesting and rewarding. Deep brain stimulation is beginning to bring life-changing benefits to victims of Parkinsons disease and other neurological disorders. In an interview, Dr. Jerrold Vitek, Chair of the Department of Neurology at the University of Minnesota, describes his vision for the future of this technology.
We also bring you original articles on:
- work underway to allow elderly persons to safely live in their own homes,
- developments in prosthetic hand technology appropriate for use in developing countries,
- and an overview of IEEE standards support for eHealth.
In our featured video, Dr. Jerrold Vitek focuses on the rapidly advancing field of deep brain stimulation, sharing his view of the exciting possibilities he foresees in the next decade. He also discusses the importance of close collaboration between doctors and engineers in this field.
Subhas Mukhopadhyay, of Massey University, New Zealand, has been directing research into a platform that combines wireless sensors and telemetry to allow elderly persons living in their own homes to be monitored for their state of wellness, hopefully allowing them to live more safely. In An Intelligent Integrated Healthcare Platform for Wellbeing and Independent Living, Dr. Mukhopadhyay and Nagender Suryadevara report on this work.
In Robotics to the Rescue: Prosthetic hands help amputees in developing countries, Dr. Dinesh K Kumar, of RMIT University, Australia, reports on the need for, state of the art, and challenges facing the development of robotic hands for amputees in developing countries.
Bill Ash and Sam Sciacca bring us a review of current IEEE Standards relating to Medical Devices, and they show the importance of such standards to the rapid advancement of the field.