Technology has moved at an amazing pace in the last few years. It is affecting the way we live in many positive ways, not least in the medical world. Medical innovations are changing people’s lives and making them much easier after a serious injury or illness.
Here are just some of the innovations changing the face of medicine forever:
Bionic Eyes
Building a bionic eye has been a real challenge for developers, but scientists seem to be on the verge of achieving this aim. Using 3D technology they have been able to print an array of light receptors onto a glass eye-shaped object. They are now working on more light receptors and a softer surface to make the implant more comfortable.
Monitoring Patch
There is now a monitoring patch that is affixed to a pregnant woman’s stomach, and it lets the doctors know the movements of the baby and the woman’s stomach muscles. The expectant parents can watch the baby on a screen, and if there is any sort of problem with the baby’s breathing, an alarm will go off alerting them so that they can get immediate medical attention.
Quicker And Accurate Test Results
We have all had the problem where we have been to the doctors for test and then had to wait weeks for the results. All the time you are waiting you are worrying about what might be wrong, and this does not help your health at all. New technologies are being used to speed up the time results take, and to make the results more accurate. Christian Fletcher at LifeBrite Laboratories is one of the pioneers utilizing the latest innovations in testing methods. Soon we will all be able to test ourselves and have results back almost instantaneously, and that truly will be a health revolution.
Collecting Health Data
The engineers at MIT have modified a wifi box so that it can track the vital signs and sleep patterns of several people in the same house, without any of them having to wear a device of any sort. This new technology will yield more biomedical data insights that can be used to help researchers optimize wellness, understand illness and select patient efficient preventions.
Smart Gadgets
For many years if you wore a hearing aid, it improved your hearing and if your wore contact lenses you could see better. These things, and others like them, have now been turned into smart gadgets. As well as improving your eyesight or hearing, they will monitor your heartbeat, amongst other things to get an overall picture of your health.
It is hoped that smart contact lenses can be packed with thousands of biosensors in the future. These will be engineered to pick up on early signs of cancer and other medical conditions. They will also offer diabetics a simple way of keeping a check on their blood sugar levels; so will help them to manage their diets and insulin intake.
Implants Of Records
An implantable device with a radio frequency is being developed that will hold all the medical records of the wearer. This ID chip will sit just under the skin. Another similar device is being worked on, but this one you would swallow and it would sit in your stomach. Both of them could make an amazing difference to the speed the right treatment could be given, and there are even people saying that they could be developed further to provide treatment as well.
Just a few years ago, many of these things seemed like science fiction, but they are now becoming a part of everyday life.
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