How to Make a Relaxing Breathing Stuffed Bear

Click Here for Video Demonstration

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Key Points - 

• Use mostly for Pediatric Patents going through Difficult Medical Procedures
• Use for Frightened Youngsters or Oldsters - any age, though.  Maybe use for Autism, PTSD, or other conditions.
• The Big Blue Tummy Light is Relaxing and Soothing.  Point of focus provide Distraction from Difficult Medical Procedure.
• Patients are urged to Time their Breathing to the Pulsing Blue Light and thus Relaxing.
• What other Uses can You Think of?  Comment, if you want.

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My Bears are not for Sale, but You can Learn how to Make Your Own Bear  Below:

1.  Find yourself a Stuffed Bear.  I bought mine at Walmart - one Beige and One Gray Bear.  Mine are about 14" x 10" x 4".

2.  Make an Arduino circuit with a Blue LED wired into the Analog Pin 11.  An On/Off Switch is wired in series with a 9 volt battery powering the Arduino.  I used an Arduino Uno, but other boards would do I'm sure.  I put all this in a Plastic Box I also got at Walmart. 

2.  Make an opening in the Back of the Bear about 3-1/2 inches long.  The Arduino and Box goes inside the Opening you made.  You might have to remove some of the stuffing to fit all this in. Buttons help hold the opening closed when you're all done.  The ON/Off Switch sticks out the back. 
Position the LED in the front of the Bear about where a Heart would be.

3.  Program the Arduino with a "Breathing LED Sketch" of your liking.  I used the NonBlockingBreathingLed 0.1 Sketch by Luca Soltoggio - 201512 May 2015" - 
Thanks, Luca Soltoggio.  If necessary, change code to fit the Analog Pin you chose.  I used Analog Pin 11.

4.  See if it works like my Video.  Tinker with it until it does what you want.  Feel free to improvise on what I did - and make it better or different.  Have fun!

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Possible Improvements below.  How can you make it better?

• Maybe add a switch to change LED Breathing Rate to fit adults, children, etc.?
• Maybe add music or words to further relax - or words to encourage the user to slow down their breathing to relax.
• Maybe add womb sounds for babies. 
• Add biofeedback to sense anxiety, current breathing rate - and encourage to relax and breathe nice and slow and easy.
• Have different colors, shapes, animals, etc.  Custom make Relaxing Stuffed Animals according to what the user wants.
• Add your comments below, if you want.

For more information - see this Photo/Video Album.

Questions? - Ask me.


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Disclaimer - Article/Video is for Information Only and is not Medical Advice.   See more disclaimers at https://sites.google.com/site/tgideas/ideas-for-products-or-services/disclaimer

Calling all "Inventors or Makers" of "Health or Medical" Stuff (Devices, etc.)

https://youtu.be/xMgxDiNSx2I

Microcontroller (Arduino) controlled Placebo Medical Device? Mobile Phone App?

Is anyone experimenting with a Medical Device that enhances the Placebo Effect?

Perhaps with a Micro-Controller, such as Arduino? 

Or...with a cell phone app?... 


Or....both??????

Or what????

I tried these search strings and found little, (so far) - 

(device OR machine OR apparatus) (placebo OR quack OR quackery OR fake) (microcontroller OR arduino)

 (placebo OR quack OR quackery) app (phone OR mobile OR cellular)


I see great potential in enhancing the Placebo Effect in healing. - What do you think?

Are you interested?  - Stay tuned!

References, particularly of interest - 

*  Do medical devices have enhanced placebo effects? - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10942860

*Testing Medical Devices, Placebo Surgery and Ethics - http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303775504579396954056675022


*  A Placebo Mobile App that Changes Your Life - from Placebo Effect - https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/a-placebo-mobile-app-that-changes-your-life-from-placebo-effect

*  Enhancing placebo effects: insights from social psychology. - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23488251


*  Enhancing the Placebo - http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/enhancing-the-placebo/?_r=0


......More to come, I predict....


Placebo references....





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo-controlled_study


"Patients frequently show improvement even when given a sham or "fake" treatment. Such intentionally inert placebo treatments can take many forms, such as a pill containing only sugar, a surgery where nothing efficacious is actually done (just an incision and sometimes some minor touching or handling of the underlying structures), or a medical device (such as an ultrasound machine) that is not actually turned on. Also, due to the body's natural healing ability and statistical effects such as regression to the mean, many patients will get better even when given no treatment at all. Thus, the relevant question when assessing a treatment is not "does the treatment work?" but "does the treatment work better than a placebo treatment, or no treatment at all?" As one early clinical trial researcher wrote, "the first object of a therapeutic trial is to discover whether the patients who receive the treatment under investigation are cured more rapidly, more completely or more frequently, than they would have been without it."^[1]p.195 More broadly, the aim of a clinical trial is to determine what treatments, delivered in what circumstances, to which patients, in what conditions, are the most effective.<sup>"

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo

"A placebo has been defined as "a substance or procedure… that is objectively without specific activity for the condition being treated".[16] Under this definition, a wide variety of things can be placebos and exhibit a placebo effect. Pharmacological substances administered through any means can act as placebos, including pills, creams, inhalants, and injections. Medical devices such as ultrasound can act as placebos.[18][19] Sham surgery,[20][21][22] sham electrodes implanted in the brain,[1] and sham acupuncture, either with sham needles or on fake acupuncture points, have all exhibited placebo effects.[23] Bedding not treated to reduce allergies has been used as a placebo to control for treated bedding.[24] The physician has even been called a placebo;[25] a study found that patient recovery can be increased by words that suggest the patient "would be better in a few days", and if the patient is given treatment, that "the treatment would certainly make him better" rather than negative words such as "I am not sure that the treatment I am going to give you will have an effect".[26] The placebo effect may be a component of pharmacological therapies: Pain killing and anxiety reducing drugs that are infused secretly without an individual's knowledge are less effective than when a patient knows they are receiving them. Likewise, the effects of stimulation from implanted electrodes in the brains of those with advanced Parkinson's disease are greater when they are aware they are receiving this stimulation.[27] Sometimes administering or prescribing a placebo merges into fake medicine."</sup>

Hypnosis References - 

*  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnosis

Combining Hypnosis with the Placebo Effect!!!!!

*  Hypnobo: perspectives on hypnosis and placebo. - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17685242

Technical Stuff...

<sup>Microcontroller - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcontroller

Arduino - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino</sup>

Some resources on Inventing Your own App's....


*  "App Inventor" - by Hal Abelson, Ellen Spertus, Liz Looney - "O'Reilly Media, Inc.", Apr 20, 2011

*  MIT App Inventor - http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/


Looking for examples or ideas on how this all might work....?

*  The "Virtual Healing Machine" - combining hypnosis and activating the Placebo Effect - https://sites.google.com/site/thevirtualhealingmachine/


*  Make your own Virtual Healing Machine with "Virtual Hypnotist"- http://thevirtualhealingmachine.blogspot.com/2011/06/make-your-own-virtual-healing-machine.html


How to Make Your Own Healing Machine - Little Known Techniques to Help You Heal- http://interesting-health-information.blogspot.com/2014/08/how-to-make-your-own-healing-machine.html



Have fun!  :-)

^{Disclaimer - Article is for information only and is not advice of any kind.}