iLimb - the Bionic Hand and iPhone App My iLimb

Linda sent me an email this morning with a link to an article that discusses how a prosthetic limb, iLimb, works with an iPhone app to enable users to function effectively.  The article, iPhone App Programs Bionic Arm, is online at http://plaindealer.oh.newsmemory.com/publink.php?shareid=0064b6ef7

The mobile app is called My i-limb mobile.  It is a free download from the iTunes store at https://itunes.apple.com/lc/app/my-i-limb/id704433967?mt=8

The amazing innovation costs $100,000 per limb, but I am sure that it must be a life saver for those who have lost a limb.

The article prompted me to go to the manufacturer, Touch Bionics, website at http://www.touchbionics.com/products/active-prostheses/i-limb-ultra/

A video showing the bionic prosthesis and how it works is embedded below.

Mobile Technologies and the Innovative Medical Home

Dr. W. suggested that I watch the webinar, Innovation in the Medical Home: How Mobile and Social Technologies Can Accelerate Health Behavior Changes, so I did!  The webinar supplements the information on telehealthcare in the Informatics and Nursing textbook. You can watch the video below.  It covers the topics of patient empowerment using mobile apps to manage diseases like congestive heart failure and diabetes.  It prompted me to explore many of the wonderful apps in the iTunes app store for diabetes! Amazing! Several of the apps should be perfect with clients who have metabolic syndrome.

Innovation in the Medical Home: How Mobile and Social Technologies Can Accelerate Health Behavior Changes from Loren Vandegrift on Vimeo.

Pocket Medical Spanish with Audio

Epocrates Pocket Medical Spanish with Audio is a free download for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad until July 8th.  You can download it from iTunes.  It includes an introduction, general questions, and different categories such as pain, chest problems, etc.  Each phrase is written in both English and Spanish with audio clip to state the phrase in Spanish.  Enjoy and have a wonderful July 4th holiday!

Transferring iTunes FIles

I wanted to sync my iPad with my Mac laptop, since both are strictly for work (I had been syncing it with the home PC).  I wanted to continue to synch my iPhone with my home office computer, since they are strictly for personal use. It turned out to be much easier than I anticipated. Note 12/3/2011- the option to create a DVD backup is no longer available on the most recent versions of iTunes (10.3 and later).

I made a backup of the iTunes library on the desktop computer.  iTunes required me to backup to a DVD (actually, it required 2 DVDs).  I opened iTunes on the Mac laptop and inserted the DVDs in the order requested by iTunes. Amazing!  My entire library appeared.

When I synced my iPad, I was warned that I could sync it to only one iTunes account at a time. iTunes asked for permission to sync with the laptop.  Since the files were identical on both devices, I said yes.  iTunes then made a backup of the iPad files, deleted and reinstalled all of the apps on the iPad.

The only problem that I had was an annoying one where the exchange email account causes my iPad to crash.  I correct the problem by deleting and then adding back the exchange account.

Lesson learned - is that iTunes created the backup from the home office computer and installed the backup on the work laptop almost invisibly. From now on, I will worry less about moving iTunes files to a new computer.