Medical Device Development for Children and Young People-Reviewing the Challenges and Opportunities.

Development of specific medical devices (MDs) is required to meet the healthcare needs of children and young people (CYP). In this context, MD development should address changes in growth and psychosocial maturation, physiology, and pathophysiology, and avoid inappropriate repurposing of adult technologies. Underpinning the development of MD for CYP is the need to ensure MD safety and effectiveness through pediatric MD-specific regulations. Contrary to current perceptions of limited market potential, the global pediatric healthcare market is expected to generate around USD 15,984 million by 2025. There are 1.8 billion young people in the world today; 40% of the global population is under 24, creating significant future healthcare market opportunities. This review highlights a number of technology areas that have led to successful pediatric MD, including 3D printing, advanced materials, drug delivery, and diagnostic imaging. To ensure the targeted development of MD for CYP, collaboration across multiple professional disciplines is required, facilitated by a platform to foster collaboration and drive innovation. The European Pediatric Translational Research Infrastructure (EPTRI) will be established as the European platform to support collaboration, including the life sciences industrial sector, to identify unmet needs in child health and support the development, adoption, and commercialization of pediatric MDs.

Online multimedia teaching tool for Parkinson's disease.

We developed an online multimedia tool designed to enhance the student-learning environment in neurosciences through multi-sensory engagement. The combined use of scrolling text, narrations, and visual imagery engages multiple sensory modalities for effective learning, and it assists students in visualizing complex processes in the nervous system. The initial rollout of the online tool is for instruction in Parkinson's disease (PD), but its structure is flexible and can be used for teaching a variety of subjects. The instructor can access the tool online during lecture, and students can access the same information via the internet outside of class. In addition, each chapter is stand-alone and thus can be accessed online by other faculty or students to supplement other courses. Within each chapter or module, information is presented in outline format with greater detail accessible via sequential drop-down menus. This layering of related topics creates a spatial and motor-accessed path for learning. These multiple forms of engagement offer rich information representations to improve students' knowledge encoding, storing, and retrieval via multiple pathways. For instance, the tool includes student-controlled 2-D and 3-D animations, and video clip demonstrations of both patient case studies and on-campus research projects directly related to the subject material. Supplemental readings consist of current research articles (in Adobe Acrobat PDF file format) accessed within each educational topic. The teaching tool for PD is online at http://geroauen.usc.edu/Gero414_Beta/.