RSS Feeds
Gadgets
Insulin Watch Concept Gives You Your Fix and Tells the Time
Posted by Addy Dugdale at 10:01 PM on December 19, 2007
Sufferers of Type-I diabetes will appreciate this concept insulin-delivering watch from Germany. Piezoelectricity generated by the wearer's movements drive the insulin-delivering pumps in the watch body, which contains enough of the drug for two to three weeks. The idea is to make life a little more normal for diabetics rather than have them wrestle with syringes each day. Jump for more info.
A student at Braunschweig University of Art called Nicole Schmeidel came up with the idea after watching a film of an 8-year old kid using a clunky insulin pump. Her device, named COR, combines a better delivery system with wrist-watch styling that she hopes will improve the quality of life of diabetics. Multiple piezo-electric transducers, originally designed for European satellites, turn the movements of the wearer into electrical current, which is then stored and used to drive pumps that deliver insulin intravenously.
Nicole intends it to look "like a watch and not a medical device", so its display switches to watch mode when the pump is not operating. The design won an award at the recent Design Technology Student Awards at the Materialica trade fair in Munich, so she is hoping to get COR into production and onto the wrists of diabetes sufferers as soon as possible.
[ESA via Eureka]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
Brad
Posted December 20, 2007 4:08 PM
Can't wait to see this one in action!!
wk1234
Posted 7:59 AM 19/12/07
Nice looking unit.
However, "Sufferers of Type-I diabetes will appreciate this concept insulin-delivering watch from Germany." Type 1 Diabetics would really like more work on a cure and less on new tools to keep us hooked. As always...a new tool to keep the status quo, and no new news on a cure.
wk1234
dominicthedonkey
Posted 9:02 AM 19/12/07
@karnak: It's probably focused on Type I's because not all Type II's need insulin. Also, it's just an insulin pump, so the finger stick blood testing would still be necessary.
dominicthedonkey
karnak
Posted 8:45 AM 19/12/07
Umm, why only Type I Diabetics?
Type II Diabetics comprise the majority of diabetics of the world. True, poor Type I's had no choice, while Type II's usually eat/sleep/fatly their way into the problem.
If there is money to be made, it's for all those adult onsetters. I hope this does make it to production, if I ever contracted the bete's, I would want something like this, rather than hauling out the old monitor and finger stick all the time.
karnak
strider_mt2k
Posted 8:42 AM 19/12/07
@wk1234: We're long past "Greed is good" here.
Greed is the order of the day, thus expect no cures any time soon.
It's bad for business you know.
strider_mt2k
Eric J
Posted 9:32 AM 19/12/07
I think there was a mistranslation about the watch containing enough of the drug for 2-3 weeks. They probably mean 2-3 days. The insulin would spoil from body heat after much longer from that, and there would be too high a risk of infection at the injection site.
And WK1234 - there is a lot of research going into a cure. I'd say it's probable within our lifetimes (unless you're 80 or so.) But there's nothing wrong with biomechanical engineers working on better pumps in the mean time, while immunologists are working on islet cell transplants, and developmental biologists are trying to grow pancrea in petri dishes. It's too big a problem to put all the eggs in one basket, and research on multiple tracks increases the chance that even dead ends for diabetes may prove productive in treating other problems.
Eric J
froggy
Posted 11:28 AM 19/12/07
say what you will about the cure (or lack thereof) but this could be very useful for those who fail to check their insulin level regularly if it was doing the testing as well. If it does not, then it's just a nice design.
froggy
Sqube
Posted 1:20 PM 19/12/07
@wk1234: It's not like there's only one group working on this. Group A's working on the cure while Group B's working on milking you until such time as the cure is produced.
I thought this was obvious to everyone by now.
Sqube
Jordan Lund
Posted 1:15 PM 19/12/07
I thought insulin had to be injected into fatty tissue like the gut or the thigh. Isn't the wrist going to be one of the least effective places to inject?
Well, unless you have really fat wrists I guess... but then if your wrists are so fat that you can inject insulin there then you probably have bigger issues...
Jordan Lund
FreeMan
Posted 3:02 PM 19/12/07
I dated a girl in high school who was type 1 diabetic. Freaked me out the first time I saw her stick herself in the lunch room. right through the jeans or sweatshirt into the thigh or stomach. After a couple of times, I got used to it (figured she was more datable live than dead, you know).
Then she stepped on my already bruised toe about 8 times at a dance, and that was pretty much the end of an already faltering relationship.
FreeMan
diggabyte
Posted 12:51 AM 20/12/07
As a type 1 diabetic of 13 years myself, I appreciate seeing great design principles being applied to medical devices like this (even conceptually).
I suspect the insulin would be stored in a bladder-like storage chamber?
Keep in mind, 72 hours of insulin takes up about the same volume of space as a fat magic marker. I hope this wouldn't be like wearing a swim-floatie on your wrist...
Nonetheless, great concept. =)
diggabyte
diggabyte
Posted 1:09 AM 20/12/07
Oh, and on the cure vs technology topic...let me chime in with the two choices:
A) some sort of gene-therapy cure [15 yrs+]
B) autonomous, glucose-aware insulin pump (i.e artificial pancreas) [< 5yrs]
I'd take option B. Dont get me wrong, I would love a cure, but technology that eliminates the 1000 decisions and tasks I face every single day is as good as a cure in my book...and much more feasible in the near-term.
A non-invasive, continuous glucose monitoring system that's integrated with an intelligent, decision-making insulin pump would change everything. It may not be as cool as the concept above, but it will be here within 3-5 years. (check out minimed.com for for more info on the emerging technology)
diggabyte