Patent ID: 7854703

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a housing; a vibrating element disposed in the housing, the vibrating element being capable of producing a vibration at a selected frequency and amplitude; a temperature element disposed in the housing and being capable of producing thermal output at a selected temperature; a scale element disposed in the housing, the scale element comprising a weight scale form factor wherein the user stands on the housing during operation of the apparatus by the user, and the scale element being capable of detecting a non-zero weight of the at least part of the user when the user stands on the housing during operation of the apparatus, a processor disposed in the housing, the processor being capable of controlling the vibrating element and the temperature element, individually or in combination, to run one or more peripheral neuropathy tests on an extremity of a user that is coupled with the vibrating element or the temperature element, or a combination thereof, in response to a non-zero weight being detected by the scale element; a user actuator to provide user feedback to the processor in response to the one or more neuropathy tests on the extremity of the user; and a memory disposed in the housing, the memory being coupled to the processor to store results of the one or more neuropathy tests and the user feedback received via the user actuator; wherein the processor is further capable of processing the one or more neuropathy tests for detecting a trend towards peripheral neuropathy of the extremity of the user, and in response to a detected trend towards peripheral neuropathy of the extremity of the user, the processor further capable of adaptively learning and selecting one or more neuropathy tests from a group of predetermined stored neuropathy tests and controlling the vibrating element and the temperature element, individually or in combination, to run the one or more selected peripheral neuropathy tests on the extremity of the user, the one or more selected neuropathy tests being selected based at least in part on the results of one or more previous neuropathy tests on the extremity of the user and the user feedback stored in the memory to further identify progression of the peripheral neuropathy of the extremity of the user over time.