Check your kid's glucose level from the next room
The US Food and Drug Administration just okayed Medtronic’s mySentry Remote Glucose Monitor that allows caregivers and parents to check glucose levels of diabetic patients sleeping in another room.
The new monitor gives you real-time insulin pump status and glucose trends. And if needed, you’ll be able to hear alerts and alarms from your bedside – so, for example, you can prevent an episode of low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia.
It’s like a baby monitor, but for blood.
About 75% of all episodes of severe hypoglycemia in children occur at night, the company says. This new device might provide that extra nighttime protection so you can sleep at night (medicine).
mySentry works with the MiniMed Paradigm REAL-Time Revel System, an insulin pump with a built-in system that monitors glucose continuously.
Predictive alerts can warn you up to 30 minutes in advance of low or high events, and threshold alerts tell you when preset low or high glucose levels have been reached.
Other things it’ll display includes: continuous glucose monitoring graph, insulin pump battery life, amount of insulin remaining, and time until the next glucose sensor calibration.
The mySentry monitor costs about $3,000. It’ll work from about 50 feet away.
Medtronic, as Reuters reports, is among the companies and researchers working to develop an artificial pancreas system that ultimately would provide insulin dosing automatically.
Images: Medtronic
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com