Week 10

FIT Treadmill Score Gauges Risk of Dying Based on Treadmill Exercise Performance

 By contrast, the new algorithm, dubbed the FIT Treadmill Score and described in the March 2 issue of the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings, can gauge long-term death risk in anyone based solely on treadmill exercise performance. The score, the research team says, could yield valuable clues about a person’s health and should be calculated for the millions of patients who undergo cardiac stress testing in the United States each year.
“The notion that being in good physical shape portends lower death risk is by no means new, but we wanted to quantify that risk precisely by age, gender and fitness level, and do so with an elegantly simple equation that requires no additional fancy testing beyond the standard stress test,” says lead investigator Haitham Ahmed, M.D. M.P.H., a cardiology fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
In addition to age and gender, the formula factors in peak heart rate reached during intense exercise and the ability to tolerate physical exertion as measured by so-called metabolic equivalents, or METs, a gauge of how much energy the body expends during exercise. More vigorous activities require higher energy output (higher METs), better exercise tolerance and higher fitness level. An activity such as slow walking equals two METs, compared with eight for running.
Exercise stress tests — commonly used to determine who needs invasive cardiac testing and inform treatment decisions — measure how well the heart and lungs respond to physical exertion while a person is walking on a treadmill at progressively higher speed and elevation. The test is stopped once a person reaches the point of exhaustion or develops chest pain, dizziness or heart rhythm abnormalities. Those who have abnormal findings on their EKG tracings during exercise or who develop symptoms suggestive of abnormal heart strain during the test are referred for angiography, an invasive procedure to examine the interior of the heart’s main blood vessels. Those who have normal EKG readings and no alarming symptoms while exercising are said to have “normal” results and typically do not require further testing.

Week 9

Best Fitness Tracker Bands

Best Overall: TomTom Runner Cardio (Full Review): 16 out of 20 stars

 The TomTom Runner Cardio is designed for runners — it has both a heart rate monitor and GPS capabilities that let it track data such as your distance, time, pace and speed. The Live Science testing team determined that this device is also the best overall tracker because it not only has the advanced features of a heart rate monitor and GPS, but it is also supremely easy to use. It has a single, large button that makes it easy to scroll through your data, even on the fly. You can also wear it while swimming. The accompanying MySports app will create charts of your data over time, and also lets you set your own goals for distance, time or calories burned, sending you text alerts to help you work toward them.

Nike FuelBand SE (Full Review): 12 of 20 stars

The Nike FuelBand SE is an update to the original version of the FuelBand, and includes a few new features, including the ability to set reminders to move. You can also create "sessions," which let you track the Fuel points you earn during a specific activity, like an afternoon run, as well as the duration of the activity. But the device provides little information about how much activity you need to be healthy, and does not provide sleep analysis.

 

Week 8

Best Fitness Apps for 2015

If you're looking to get (or stay) in shape with the help of a smartphone, you have options. Lots of them: There are apps that will track your exercise, apps that will record your food intake, and even apps that will remind you to drink water.

If you're looking for one, all-inclusive app that will take on all your fitness-related tasks, our pick is MapMyFitness.

The app is fundamentally a workout tracker, allowing users to either manually log the time they spend exercising and what they do (choices range from firefighting to yoga to mowing the lawn), or to use the phone's built-in GPS to record distance and time during a run, walk or bike ride. One feature that elevates MapMyFitness above other workout trackers is its "Routes" option — simply click "My Routes" to see maps of your usual walks and jogs, or try "Nearby" for popular exercise routes near you. The Nearby option is a great, easy way to get yourself out of a running rut.

Week 7

 Best Calorie Counter App

Keeping a food diary can help with the battle of the bulge, and tracking calories has never been simpler. You don't even need a pencil and paper — your smartphone can do the work for you.
A number of apps let users log their meals and count their daily calories using searchable nutrition databases. Many even come equipped with barcode scanners, for easy logging of packaged foods. Research backs up the notion that tracking your food intake can help with weight loss and maintenance. In August 2008, a Kaiser Permanente study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine found that participants in a weight-loss program lost twice as much weight when they kept a food diary compared with when they did not. The average weight loss for all study participants was 13 pounds.

MyFitnessPal

The app takes in information about your weight and weight-loss goals, and calculates a recommended calorie budget for the day. This budget appears on the app's home screen, along with a running count of the calories you've taken in from food and burned by exercising.

MyFitnessPal also saves frequently entered foods to a tab for quick entry, and allows users to save their favorite meals in another easy-to-search spot. A pie chart shows an estimated breakdown of the number of calories you've consumed from carbohydrates, fats and proteins. These breakdowns are then compared to the user's diet goals for each. Both daily and weekly charts are available. A nice bonus is the notes section, where users can write anything about their food or exercise that day — perhaps a reminder of how eating a particular food made them feel, or what effect a certain exercise had on their mood.

Week 6

 New Technology Revolutionizes Imaging for Pediatric Spine Patients.

EOS machine reduces radiation exposure
 while producing full view of skeleton

For the first time, pediatric spinal patients in upstate New York have access to new imaging technology that dramatically decreases their radiation exposure while producing more precise images with better information for orthopaedic specialists. The EOS^® machine is especially useful for pediatric patients with scoliosis or long-bone issues and have to undergo multiple scans over their lifetime.

With a growing number of pediatric spinal patients traveling to Golisano Children’s Hospital at the University of Rochester Medical Center for the highly specialized care of pediatric orthopaedic surgeons, the Department of Imaging Sciences and the Department of Orthopaedics saw the need for the precision of the EOS^® machine. The machine is not available anywhere else in upstate New York. Among its many attributes, it:

·         Reduces radiation exposure by at least 1/3 in each scan, exponentially reducing exposure for patients requiring repeat scans over a lifetime

·         Produces images that are actual size without any distortion

·         Produces a scan from the front and side at the exact same time, so the images are completely matched and can be used to create three-dimensional reconstructions

·         Scans are immediately available for physician interpretation, cutting down on wait-time for patients

Johan G. (Hans) Blickman, M.D., Ph.D., Radiologist-in-Chief of Golisano Childrens Hospital, said another benefit of the machine is the ease with which children and adolescents can get in and out of the machine, even if using a wheelchair. They are able to stand or sit in the exact same position as previous scans, allowing radiologists and orthopaedic surgeons to more precisely compare growth and changes over time. The machine scans without magnification, so there is no distortion or educated guessing of measurements.

Week 5

Vaccines: An Unhealthy Skepticism

An outbreak of measles that started at Disneyland has turned a spotlight on those who choose not to vaccinate their children. How did we get to a point where personal beliefs can triumph over science?

 A Discredited Vaccine Study’s Continuing Impact on Public Health

Measles Outbreaks

Outbreaks in countries to which Americans often travel can directly contribute to an increase in measles cases in the U.S.
Reasons for an increase in cases some years:

• 2015: The majority of cases reported so far during 2015 are part of a large, ongoing outbreak linked to an amusement park in California.
• 2014: The U.S. experienced 23 measles outbreaks in 2014, including one large outbreak of 383 cases, occurring primarily among unvaccinated Amish communities in Ohio. Many of the cases in the U.S. in 2014 were associated with cases brought in from the Philippines, which experienced a large measles outbreak. For more information see the Measles in the Philippines Travelers' Health Notice.
• 2013: The U.S. experienced 11 outbreaks in 2013, three of which had more than 20 cases, including an outbreak with 58 cases. For more information see Measles — United States, January 1-August 24, 2013.
• 2011: In 2011, more than 30 countries in the WHO European Region reported an increase in measles, and France was experiencing a large outbreak. Most of the cases that were brought to the U.S. in 2011 came from France. For more information see Measles — United States, January-May 20, 2011.
• 2008: The increase in cases in 2008 was the result of spread in communities with groups of unvaccinated people. The U.S. experienced several outbreaks in 2008 including three large outbreaks. For more information see Update: Measles — United States, January–July 2008.

 

Week 4

Flexible nanogenerator harvests muscle movement to power mobile devices

 nanogenerator resembles a small, stamp-sized patch that attaches to your skin. The power generates thanks to the triboelectric effect, which is when certain types of materials can become electrically charged through contact and friction with another material — in this case, the patch gains the charge through fiction with human skin. When the two materials are pulled apart, they generate a current that can be harvested. An electrode is needed in order to harvest the current, so the research team installed a 50nm-thick gold film to get the job done. The gold film sits below a silicone rubber layer composed of thousands of tiny pillars that help create more surface area for skin contact, which in turn creates more friction.

Second Life

Artistic Bliss

 

 Second Life is a 3D world where everyone you see is a real person and every place you visit is built by people just like you.

In 2013, Linden Lab expanded its product portfolio to include Blocksworld, a lighthearted build-and-play system on the iPad for kids and grownups alike.

Blocksworld is a fun 3D building
game for the whole family!

What educational value is there in Blocksworld?

While Blocksworld lets children play with shapes, geometry designs, construction and more, the true value of Blocksworld is the stimulation of the imagination. Whether your children want to build mazes, rocket ships, skyscrapers or futuristic hover crafts, Blocksworld is fertile ground for an active mind.

Week # 3

Robotic Check-Ups

Technology is a cost-effective and increasingly potent means to connect clinics in the vast and medically underserved rural regions of the United States with big city medical centers and their specialists. Telemedicine is well established as a tool for triage and assessment in emergencies.

RP-VITA Remote Presence Robot

The RP-VITA® robot was designed to transform the delivery of acute care by expanding the use of remote consults and increasing workflow efficiency.

InTouch Health products are the only Class II telemedicine remote presence medical devices of their kind on the market that are cleared by the FDA for "active patient monitoring in high-acuity clinical environments where immediate clinical action may be required." This includes pre- and perioperative, post-surgical, cardiovascular, neurological, pre-natal, psychological and critical care environments as well as psychological and critical care assessments and examinations. 

Week 2

Apple Watch 

 Coming Early 2015

The Glances feature gives you real-time views of the information you check most often, like the weather, stock quotes, upcoming calendar events, and more. Apple Watch notifications take on a whole new feel because they discreetly come right to your wrist. And they’re designed to let you address or dismiss them just as subtly.

New watch overview 

The Apple Watch companion app reveals all-new details

Week 1

            I have some computer experience. I had taken some computer classes in my native Country Venezuela in between 2000-2001, CIS 131 in winter of 2007 and CIS 120 in spring of 2010. I graduated in 2011 as a Medical assistant and I am currently working in the requirements needed to apply to the Nursing program. I have an old laptop, but still working very well with some updates and love. The only thing that it does not work is the letter (y,Y) but I just press alt+121 for lowercase and alt+89 for uppercase, problem solve :-). I will love to learn how to be proficient in Excel 2013, PowerPoint 2013, Word 2013 and “blogging”. I will love to get up to date with the new technology and to be an efficient user. 

http://hr.umich.edu/mhealthy/programs/ergonomics/pdf/keyboard_shortcuts.pdf

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg674677.aspx