Any nurse or nurse’s aide can tell you that lifting patients is one of the physically toughest parts of the job. Training stresses how to care for your back, but lifting a patient in ideal conditions isn’t always possible. And, often you want to lift a patient but you don’t have someone close by to help – and it’s not feasible for you to do it yourself.

Well, trust the Japanese to come up with a solution. Jetsons move over: meet the robot nurse.

This cute looking robot, RIBA (not the robot in this photo), has been designed to use its “arms” to gently lift a patient and hold him or her as the robot moves to the destination, where it lowers the patient. Of course, the robot can’t work alone and a human has to help guide the robot and help support the patient’s head and provide comfort. As an added benefit, there’s a built in scale so the robot can weigh the patient at the same time.

To see what RIBA looks like and what he/she can do, click on the TV screen below to watch a news clip with the RIBA and the designer.

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Images: PhotoXpress.com, iStock.com

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However, researchers are looking to technology to change this learning pattern and have created virtual patient simulators for residents to practice on before using a scalpel on real patients.

Clinical trials are currently being held at the Stanford University School of Medicine to test the effectiveness of this virtual reality training.

They are integrating data from patient’s pre-op CT scans into a virtual patient simulator. The simulator consists of a endoscopic camera and mannequin head that is attached to a touch-feedback device. As the ‘surgeon’ manipulates the endoscope through the nose of the ‘patient’, he or she can watch what’s happening on the computer screen about the ‘patient’.

The computer is programmed to determine just how much resistance the ‘surgeon’ needs to apply to the endoscope throughout it’s journey through the sinus cavity.

No blood, no gore, and more importantly, no real patient to practice on.

Sounds promising.

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I’m not too sure what to make of it really. The Pocket Cemetery lets you create virtual memories using cusomizable tombstones and cemetery plots with pictures, bios, and favorite memories.

And it doesn’t have to be just for your family. You can memorialize anyone, including celebrities and pets. You can even put virtual flowers and personalized messages can be placed on graves.

Given that family members are often spread around the world and can‘t always get home, this might not be such a bad idea.

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According to creator Wayne Perry, fans of Michael Jackson also think it’s a good idea. He’s received numerous requests for pre-release versions of the Pocket Cemetery from the King of Pop’s fans who want to create their own memorials to Michael.

Perry added his own Michael Jackson memorial to his YouTube channel last week and since then has gotten over 1,000 requests for the Pocket Cemetery.

Macabre or brilliant – you decide.

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But that was television and in reality, we all knew that the tricorder didn’t exist.

But now it’s starting to look as though it does.

Meet the Standoff Patient Triage Tool (SPTT), a 15-by-8-by-6-inch (or about 38-by-20-by-15-centimeter) machine that according to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate can gauge a person’s pulse, body temperature and muscle movement from up to 40 feet away.

Using the same type of laser technology already in use on airplanes and in acoustic speakers and landmine detectors, the SPTT quickly measures vibrations in the human head and chest and use the data to calculate vital signs.

Imagine the possibilities of such a machine. According to the DHS, this machine could potentially take only 30 seconds to do what it normally takes a medic three to five minutes per person.

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Meet the The Multimodal Brain Orchestra. They performed their very first live concert a couple of days ago at the Science Beyond Fiction conference in Prague.  Using their brains, the performers controlled variations of visuals, sounds, frequencies, and volumes in the a piece of music called Xmotion. Their goal – to see what the brain can do without the body.

It was a brilliant performance without musical instruments, although the music itself is probably an acquired taste.

Check out their performance here.

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Full of blood and gore, it’s definitely not for anyone who has a weak stomach. But if you ever dreamed of being a surgeon, love all the reality medical shows, then this might just be the list for you.

The list covers everything from open-heart surgery to amputations, sex-change operations to autopsies. They even remove a fish hook from an eye. Nothing, it seems, is safe from the internet.

Brain surgery anyone?

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The app, which offers smokers a proven quit smoking therapy, was developed by the School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS) at George Washington University and the National Cessation Collaborative (NTCC) with support from the National Cancer Institute (NCI)

Smokers can find this new app on their  iPhone or itunes site by simply by searching ‘My Quitline’ or ‘quit smoking’.

Sure, there are plenty of other iPhone apps aimed at encouraging, assisting, and supporting smokers who are trying to quit, but the ‘My Quitline’ app is the only one that links smokers with a proven evidence-based therapy on how to quit smoking.

Sounds like a winner for quitters to me.

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Interested in finding out where the latest salmonella or Avian Flu outbreak is?

Well, now you can thanks to Healthmap.

Healthmap gathers text from the World Health Organization, Google News, and many other resources and filters it down and puts it onto a map for everyone to see. Never has disease tracking been so accessible. Healthmap displays the outbreaks on a world map, color coding the severity of the outbreak based on current and up-to-date news reporting.

And it’s so easy to use. The zoom and scrolling features let you pinpoint the latest outbreaks of over 50 diseases (human and animal). Pick a disease or a location listed on at the left of the screen and then click on the map to read the original article or report.

Check it out…

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Once you had to wade through heaps of medical texts to find out what symptoms match what disease. Then the internet showed up and you could access the same information much more quickly through the click of the mouse.

And now there is the A.D.A.M., the Symptom Navigator, a web application that has been created for the new Apple iPhone 3G which will allow people to identify health concerns on the go. It doesn’t matter where you are – on the beach, in the air, at the circus -as long as you have network access and a iPhone, you can use it. You simply have to load the Symptom Navigator on the iPhone 3G by visiting http://iphone.adam.com.

Here’s how it works. An image of the human body is on the screen and the user is able to click on the area of the body they re concerned about. When they do this, they will be presented with a menu of related symptoms. Once the user has selected a symptom from the menu, they are provided with the possible causes, how to treat, advice on when to call the doctor, and what to expect from your doctor. By the way, all the medical information provided is from the A.D.A.M. medically reviewed, evidence-based, and URAC accredited Health Encyclopedia.

Sounds amazing.

For anyone thinking of buying the new Apple iPhone 3G, it goes on sale July 11th.

Me, I’m going to add it to my ‘christmas wish list’ alongside the Nintendo Wii…

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