Category: Poster Ideas (Page 2 of 2)

Most common medication or supplements are prescribed to be swallowed orally, usually accompanied by a glass of water. However, this form of intake present a choking hazard to younger children, and to elderly people who may have trouble swallowing pills whole. This target audience would also likely have trouble chewing pills or ingesting crushed up pills, which leaves only one solution…

For my poster presentation idea, I would like to propose a dissolver cage – a device that would submerge the prescribed pill in water or any other liquid of choice. The cage could also include a cover to fit the top of a glass, so that the patient would be able to shake the solution to allow the pill to dissolve quicker. Thus, such a device would allow those who struggle swallowing whole pills to intake their medication safely and smoothly.

A few years ago my dad went into the emergency room with chest pain. Because he has hypertension and a history of heart complications the hospital staff immediately took him to get an angiogram done. The concern was that he was about to have a heart attack. The test was administered and everything was found to be normal. Unfortunately for my dad this test did more harm than good.

The following day he felt some pain in his right wrist. He eventually realized he could not feel his pulse in that wrist. He called the Physician’s Assistant that had administered the angiogram and was told this kind of complication does occur to one in every one thousand persons that have an angiogram done. He was also told not to worry about it and it seemed as if this would have no effect on his lifestyle. However as someone who works out daily, my dad quickly found out his abilities were limited. Any exercise that required him to put pressure on his wrist was no longer possible. That put push-ups, pull ups, and most weightlifting exercises out of the question.

An angiogram is an X ray image of a person’s blood vessels after they are filled with iodine or some other dye.  In order to do this a catheter is inserted into an artery in the groin or arm. The catheter is then pushed toward the blood vessels in and around the heart by a fluoroscope, which is a special x ray instrument. The complication my dad experienced is known as an ischemia. An ischemia is the inadequate blood supply to an organ or part of the body.

After further research I found out that more severe cases of ischemia as a result of an angiogram have occurred and require angioplasty or amputation. Studies have shown that thrombosis, or the formation of a clot in the blood vessel can occur during the procedure. It usually occurs only when the catheter is inserted into the arm. This leads me to believe that a different design of catheter may be able to lessen the chances of this complication occurring.

About two months ago, my father suffered a puncture in his calves. After applying anti-bacterial medication, my father wrapped the wound with clean, white cloths. A few weeks later, the wound is still present. After seeing the doctor, my father returned with gauze wound dressings. As of right now, the injury is still present. Although it is a simple wound, I am dissatisfied at how long the wound is taking to cure. Every week, my father would go to the hospital to have the dressings taken off and then put back on. Although my father is not complaining, I feel tired imagining this situation.

To change this situation, maybe the doctor should use transparent film dressing. This product helps easily monitor injuries without having to change dressings repeatedly. However, transparent film dressing is not without precaution. For wound with inflammations, such product should not be used. The idea to improve this situation is a new type of transparent film dressing that would be applicable to different types of injuries. To approach this, researching different companies that produce transparent film dressing and different scientists who specialized in external injuries might be helpful.

When I was a kid I used to love playing sports with my grandpa, he was very athletic. Then one day I wake up and find out that he had a stroke and is paralyzed in one side of his body. He can no longer move his left arm and his left leg. He did therapy for a long time and tried to get feeling back but nothing worked.

This is where my innovation comes to play. I want to create a device that connects to the brain and the arm of a paralyzed person. They would wear some sort of device on their arm and either have a chip implanted in their brain or wear some sort of device on their head. I am hoping to link the chip to the device and when you think of moving your arm the device will react and lift up your arm. This would help paralyzed people move what they couldn’t move before.

Other healthcare services have been testing something similar to this but not exact. They are linking up minds to a third party robotic arm. So a paralyzed person will think and the robotic arm will do, it’s just not the person’s arm. I want to incorporate the robotic arm into the actual person’s arm.

A few years ago while playing basketball in my friend’s pool I felt a rush of pain.  I screamed after stubbing my toe quite hard and lifted up my foot to find that my toe was broken.  After rushing to urgent care it was revealed to me that the course of action was to wrap my toe to another toe and wait for it to heal.  I found this crazy.  Not only did I not understand why I just had to wait for it to heal, but why did I have to wrap my toe to another toe?  In the past when I jammed my finger very hard I received a splint, so why when I broke my toe did I just have to wrap it to it’s neighbor?

I think that various players in the healthcare system need to do a better job of healing broken toes.  My suggestion as to how this might come to be is by creating a toe splint.  Similar to the idea of a finger splint, the toe splint will be a hard device that keeps one’s toe straight.  However, because it must fit inside a shoe it will have to be more sleek than the typical splint that you see on people’s fingers.  I think that this is an easy solution to a problem that many such as myself have had.

One healthcare issue that has recently affected my mother is the accumulation of excess fluid around her knees. For the past year, my mom has been suffering from excruciating pain in her knees due to the excess fluid. She visited many doctors and they all said that there is no permanent cure for this problem. One of the safest and most effective treatments is having the liquid taken out with a needle. So, she finally took their advice and had the liquid taken out 2 months ago. When she originally had the liquid taken out, the pain completely disappeared. However, now she has been gradually feeling increasing pains again and the doctors say that she has accumulated new liquid in her knees and needs to get the procedure done again.

Learning that she had to have to procedure done again annoyed me quite a bit because I know several people who have the same problem and there should be more research done to stop this liquid build up permanently or at least for a longer period of time. I personally believe that leg ligaments issues are being neglected because they are issues that are not as life threatening as other healthcare issues. However, the agony that it causes a person is a daily struggle and often handicaps them since they cannot walk. There should be more medical researchers focusing on leg ligaments and there should be more funding provided to them. In the long run, this would help reduce Medicaid costs since it prolongs their self-reliance and reduces the need for an aid.