This smart health connected belt will change the life of urinary incontinence by indicating when their bladder is full

[ad_1]

Bedwetting, more commonly known as "urinary incontinence", represents real suffering for those affected by it. A fairly common phenomenon in the elderly, incontinence can also affect the youngest. But apart from wearing a diaper or having surgery, few solutions are available to patients. To overcome this problem, the company Lir Scientific has looked into the matter and found a solution: a smart belt capable of warning people when their bladder is full. SooCurious reveals it to you.

Jean Rintoul, CEO of Lir Scientific, wants to offer a new solution to this chronic disease. So she started manufacturing a new portable device called "Brightly" which aims to replace the adult diaper industry. Bedwetting is a phenomenon that results in uncontrollable and involuntary loss of urine, which occurs day or night. This has a very stigmatizing psychosocial impact: it often places affected adults in shame, sometimes even preventing them from going to see a doctor. About a year ago, this self-employed entrepreneur started going to medical marathons and reading numerous studies looking for the combination of good technology and a good concept for a previously non-existent medical wearable device. The idea for "Brightly" came to him after studying bio-impedance spectroscopy, a technique by which tiny electrical signals are sent through the body to measure subtle changes in body tissue. "I realized that the bladder is one of the easiest things to see with technology because it is a large balloon of conductive material," she said.

A simple device to use

The device is very simple, it is a belt made up of bio-sensors which can see the bladder non-invasively and define when it is full. Associated with bluetooth technology, it can then discreetly send an alert to the smartphone of the person who then knows that it is time for them to go to the toilet. "The idea is to give people a little dignity and independence," says the CEO, who previously worked in the mobile phone industry including Intel brands and Emotiv, an Australian start-up. which develops brain-computer interfaces.

One of the reasons that pushed Jean Rintoul to be interested in incontinence is that her father, who had prostate cancer, suffered from it. In this case, having an operation for urinary incontinence is much more risky. Two of his colleagues, met through the hacker community, have agreed to sign for HAX, a program based jointly in San Francisco and in the manufacturing center of Shenzhen, China. After creating a prototype in China, the young woman and her team signed with a group of volunteers to Review it. "Brightly" is tentatively priced at 350 euros, which might seem expensive at first glance, but it is a good deal compared to the ultrasound devices currently used in hospitals, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars. These devices are also much larger compared to "Brightly".

A broader perspective

The young woman recognizes that her project is still in its infancy. The company is currently finishing collecting data from the small-scale trial and has just released the project a few weeks ago. The next step is to conduct pilot studies with urologists. She would also like to Review the device in hospitals, where it could help nurses by signaling when patients need to go to the bathroom, and she points out the high number of patients who die from pressure sores due to the enuresis. Anne Suskind, assistant professor of urology at UCSF, is a little skeptical about the invention of the company Lir Scientific. According to her, the device seems to be a roundabout way of making the bathroom excursion a timed activity with an alarm for patients under the guise of incontinence. "If you understand how quickly you fill your bladder, you're still going to have to go to the bathroom at the same time, more or less," she says.

But Jean Rintoul sees many other applications, well beyond the prevention of incontinence, this portable device can allow for example to measure tissue changes in the human body or even be used for medical imaging. And even if the object is not very popular with consumers, she says she is proud to have done a job in which she believes. "For some startups, it seems that their goal is to race for small innovations, we try to have a greater perspective of our technology, precisely by targeting the elderly. After all, we will all age. "

This smart belt, one of a kind, is a very useful invention. smart health connected to a laptop, it allows incontinent people to know when their bladder is full. At the writing of SooCurious, we are satisfied to know that the life of urinary incontinence can literally change thanks to this device. Do you think this type of technology will be accessible to all incontinent people or do you believe that only an easier part will be able to obtain it?

[ad_2]

AB SMART HEALTH health home & BUILDING REVIEW