Month: October 2022

Aural Analytics Inc. and Hhitt Inc., dba Hitcheck, teamed up to offer a cognitive assessment application that could quickly answer the question, “Should he play?” after a hit to the head during a game. Considering the controversy over Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s loss of consciousness following his second head injury in two games last month, the cognitive assessment tool, which includes clinical-grade speech analytics, comes none too soon.

“There is a distinct link between brain injury and changes in speech and language that can be quickly and easily measured using Aural Analytics speech vitals technology,” said Aural CEO Judy Smythe. “Human speech relies on the coordination of complex neural activity, including cognitive and motor functions. A concussion or brain injury can cause damage to the underlying system, which becomes apparent in one’s speech.”

“Concussions can result in a number of acute symptoms that impact speech, including incoordination and changes to cognitive function,” Smythe told BioWorld. “In addition, a concussion is associated with long-term physical and cognitive symptoms that impact mental health and social function. Speech is a unique measurement tool because it can provide insight into upstream neurological changes that cause impairment to coordination, cognition, and mood, and into downstream changes to social function.”

Read the full article: As NFL dithers, Aural and Hitcheck partner for in-game concussion assessment

It’s not easy being a crypto investor.

They’ve seen the value of their holdings drop like a brick this year, and now many are stewing over the safety of their crypto cash after a series of heists that’s seen around $2 billion spirited away by hackers.

Enter the ghost of technology’s past.

Hardware wallets – old-school physical devices similar to USB drives that stash crypto holdings offline – might seem a throwback to a more innocent digital age, but they’re proving to be a popular response to a cutting-edge conundrum.

It’s not only hacks making investors edgy. Others lost access to their crypto when major lenders such as Celsius Network and Voyager Digital collapsed in July.

“We have definitely seen increased interest in hardware wallets, and in general self-custody, post-several issues,” said Adam Lowe, chief product and innovation officer at U.S.-based CompoSecure (CMPO.O), one of several hardware wallet makers seeking to capitalize on a rush for safety.

Read the full article: Cryptoverse: Hack jitters push bitcoin investors back to the future

A 73-year-old Bandon man says he’s feeling better than he did when he was in his 60s after a near-death experience last year.

In February 2021, Bob Vann suffered a heart attack. Doctors gave him a slim chance at survival.

“I had a 2% chance of living,” Vann said.

“He had a hole in the heart between two important chambers, the right ventricle and the left ventricle. We have a lot of babies that are born with holes in their hearts, but babies are able to tolerate it, and they’ll eventually get surgery and they’ll do just fine.” Dr. Ashok Venkataraman, a cardiothoracic surgeon at RiverBend said. “Adults who have lived until 70 years of age and have a normal heart, if they suddenly have a hole in their heart from a heart attack, they usually don’t do very well very quickly.”

Dr. Venkataraman said Vann’s condition was a pretty high mortality condition, and even doing emergency surgery to fix the hole in his heart is very highly risky.

The Impella pump is the world’s smallest heart pump. It’s a piece of technology that doctors say they’re seeing more success with. In Vann’s case, it was inserted into his heart and remained there for 12 days.

“All five patients who have had this post infarction ventricular septal defect that have come through this hospital in the last years have actually survived with this pump assist technology,” Dr. Venkataraman said.

See the full segment: Bandon man survives near-death experience thanks to world’s smallest heart pump

Jessica Grib shares her experience with peripartum cardiomyopathy to raise awareness of the heart failure that occurs in pregnant people.

When Jessica Grib of St. Louis was about 32 weeks pregnant with her second child, her blood pressure started rising. At the time, the then-30-year-old thought little of it.

“I wasn’t really concerned,” Grib, now 36, told TODAY. “I didn’t think that anything was going to happen.”

Her doctor prescribed her medication, but her blood pressure didn’t lower. Even bed rest did little to help. After delivering the baby, Grib went into cardiac arrest. She learned she had peripartum cardiomyopathy, a type of heart failure or weakness of the heart muscle that occurs at the end of pregnancy or within the first five months of delivery, Grib’s doctor, Dr. Kathryn Lindley, director of the Women’s Health Center at Vanderbilt University, told TODAY. The rare condition can be hard to detect because it mimics pregnancy symptoms, according to the American Heart Association.

When blood pressure medication and bed rest did little to help Grib, her doctor suggested delivering her baby at 37 weeks. She agreed. At the last minute, the baby, Amelia, turned breech, and doctors needed to perform a cesarean section. As Grib lay in the recovery room, she started crashing.

As staff tried to bring her to the cardiac catheterization lab, a room with diagnostic equipment that can generate images of the heart, she needed CPR for 10 minutes.

“It was very obvious that I was having a heart event,” Grib explained. “One of the nurses was a new father himself, and his whole mantra was, ‘We’re not going to lose her.’”

Doctors implanted an Impella heart pump, and she was later transferred to another hospital, where she was placed on ECMO, a type of life-support machine that works like external heart and lungs, according to the American Thoracic Society. The two devices worked together to support her while her heart recovered.

“I was basically on maximal life support hours after my daughter was born,” Grib said. “They definitely had no idea what was happening with me.”

Read the full article: Mom, 30, details her experience with heart failure that mimics pregnancy symptoms