Hello everyone,
I am a young French physiotherapist passionate about 3D printing and new technologies in general.
Due to my job I have the opportunity to take care in patients' homes. A lot of patients are alone with a bad autonomy.
I recently read an article saying that a 3D printed bracelet (with integrated electronics) is called the rescue in case of fall in heart rate.
I own a 3D printer, but I am totally novice regarding the programing, if someone is interested in this project you can contact me by mail order to exchange more information:
martins66600@gmail.com
You can buy such things off-the-shelf. Usually aimed at seniors, phone and and subscription-based ($30/month.)
Medical Alert Systems
Seems like a dangerous project. You may be able to create something that works using an arduino/ atmega-chip. Atmel (who makes the arduino-controllers) advises to not... use their products for medical applications though. There probably are products with medical certification available as well. (It wouldn't surprise me you need such a certification anyway.)
Most important, what if one of your bracelets would fail for some reason ?
Would you like to be responsible ?
You can certainly learn to build something like this, but you will need experience. The 3D printer is not the relevant part of the process: you could probably make the bracelet itself completely by hand and it would make no difference. I have written control software for medical instrumentation for years and the important parts to know are:
- Is the thing you're building considered a Medical Device by the country you are in? This bracelet is not likely to be
- What are the consequences of failure?
- What is the likelihood of failure?
- Is the product effective: that is, does it actually solve a problem for the user?
The actual programming and design of a Medical Device is usually pretty straightforward and not particularly difficult. You don't need specially qualified parts except in certain applications. Pretty much all manufacturers claim their components are not to be used in medical devices to get themselves off the hook for liability! What trips up most newcomers is the tremendous amount of documentation, design process, testing, Quality Assurance procedures and manufacturing and supply chain management concerns.
Actually writing software or designing hardware takes a very little fraction of the total time.