This week’s Smart Health roundup features a headset that lets people with limited mobility control their surroundings, funding for a new fitness suit, and a wearable tech offering to help care for the elderly.

Headset helps people with neurodegenerative disease

Royal Philips and Accenture plc have teamed up to create a trial application that could grant more independence to people suffering from neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Using a headset developed by Emotiv Systems, Inc., which can read brain waves and translate it to readable data, the app is able to perform commands such as controlling smart appliances including smart TVs and connected light bulbs like the Philips Hue line. The system is also able to recognize voice commands and eye movements, as well as allow the wearer to make pre-recorded voice commands to make controlling their environment easier.

Though the system also has the potential to become a direct line of data exchange between patients and doctors, Philips and Accenture believe it’s more important for patients who are slowly losing bodily functions to regain some form of control so they can regain a sense of independence.

Athos raises $12.2M in Series B funding

Athos, the fitness apparel brand that uses electromyography to analyze muscle activity, raised $12.2 million in a Series B funding led by venture capital firm DCM, with the participation of True Ventures, majority owner of the Golden State Warriors Joe Lacob, existing investor The Social + Capital Partnership, and Jermaine O’Neal, who played for the Golden State Warriors last season.

What sparked these investors’ interest in Athos is its unique ability to measure every muscle exertion, heart beat, and breath. It’s the perfect wearable device to let you know when you’ve pushed yourself to your limit or when you can push more without detriment.

As more organizations in the athletic industry move to data-driven models, innovation thrives around wearable tech that can gather data from a myriad of points for precision analysis and real-time decisions.

CarePredict’s Tempo helps monitor the elderly

CarePredict, Inc. is looking to get its wearable device Tempo raise funds on Fundable LLC.  But what is Tempo?  It looks like a smartwatch but Tempo is a device that tracks a person’s activities, logs them as they happen, and delivers meaningful insight on changes in daily activities. If you have parents or grandparents living on their own or in homes for elderlies and you want to make sure that they’re always safe and doing normal activities, Tempo will help you monitor just that.

The device uses GPS tracking and sensors to learn activity patterns such as sitting, walking, lying down for a nap, sleeping and trips to the bathroom. By learning these daily patterns, Tempo is able to compare data daily and pick up on subtle changes such as taking too long to walk the same distance, more frequent bathroom trips than days prior, and variations in naps. As any of these could be signs of health problems, Tempo hopes to aid caregivers in being proactive to manage the elderly. Alerts will be sent via text or email, and will also be accessible directly through the Tempo app.

Image via Emotive Systems, Inc.