Protexo aims to help asthma patients( special gadgets)

The Protexo is a device that blows cool air on asthma sufferers as they sleep, to keep allergens away from their 'breathing zone'

Asthmatics have it hard enough when they're awake, having to periodically use their inhalers, or remove themselves from situations that could trigger an attack. For some of them, however, their symptoms get even worse when they go to bed, preventing them from getting a good night's sleep. Airsonett, a Swedish medical tech company, is attempting make life easier for those people. It has created a device called the Protexo, which it claims should be of great assistance to night-time asthma sufferers.

According to Airsonett, the heat rising from the exposed skin of a sleeping person creates a chimney effect, drawing cooler air from the immediate vicinity towards the head, and then up. As that air travels through and across the bed sheets (which are a significant source of allergens), it picks up particles from those sheets and brings them to the person's nose, where they are inhaled.

Protexo

The Protexo works by gently blowing a stream of filtered air down onto the person, that air being slightly cooler than the air in the room. This cancels out the chimney effect, and in fact serves to move the particle-laden air away from the person's face. The device is apparently able to modulate the velocity of its air flow, in order to break the convection effect, while still creating as little draft as possible.
Known as Temperature controlled laminar airflow treatment, or TLA, the technology has reportedly been shown to result in a 3,000-fold reduction of particles measuring half a micron and larger, as measured in the breathing zone. It is also said to improve on the performance of a best-in-class air purifier by a further 99 percent.

In a recent year-long study, a group of 281 non-smoking asthma sufferers from six European countries regularly used either a Protexo, or a dummy device. At the end of the trial, the Protexo group scored 14 to 15 percent higher when evaluating their quality of life, but also showed significant decreases in nitric oxide and immunoglobulin E levels, both of which are indicators of inflammation.
There's no word on pricing or availability, but interested parties can find more information on the Airsonett website.

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Valkee headset shines light to dispel seasonal depression

It is common knowledge that our surroundings do affect us when it comes to our moods – and plenty of people do get depressed or feel generally down whenever the winter season sets in and gets a foothold of the situation. Well, there were light therapy situations in the past, but this time around we have another method of uplifting your mood through the use of the Valkee headset. This device will channel bright light using your ear canal into your brain’s photosensitive areas, as a measure to effective prevent and treat seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
So far, initial trials have proved to be rather successful, where up to 92% of the patients who suffer from SAD achieving full remission after a daily Valkee dose of anywhere from eight to a dozen minutes. Who would have thought that shining light into one’s ear canal could help treat depression? Well, the Valkee headset has been around for slightly more than a year already, but just in case you are not aware of its existence and might want to sought for external help, head on here. 

via UBERGIZMO

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Spray-on Skin Kit Could Heal Wounds Faster

Recell Credit: Avita Medical

The idea of spray-on skin conjures up memories of Halloween costumes past. But in the case of ReCell, it’s actually a kit that can do a lot of good. The ReCell Kit has been developed by Avita Medical to treat burns, wounds, and hyper or hypo pigmentation caused by disease, and to improve the look of scars. It works by harvesting a patient’s keratinocytes and melanocytes, the building blocks of skin cells, and putting them in a suspension solution that allows them to multiply. Because the cells are from the same patient, there is no risk of rejection or disease.
An area about 80 times as large as the original sample can be produced in under a half hour. After that, the new cells are sprayed over the burn, where they will multiply even more. The company claims this type of application will result in less scarring (as compared with skin grafts) and make the skin look as if it were never damaged, especially in younger patients. The kit has been approved for use in Europe, Australia and Canada, but is still undergoing clinical trials in the United States.

Via: Gizmodo
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