5 technologies in medicine to watch out for in 2017

medical-technologies
  • Wound-healing technology

Medicareplus have been endlessly researching into skin integrity and advance wound healing with the vision of improving patients’ lives. They also aim to provide access to cost effective and evidenced-based skin solutions for patients all across the world, hopefully in the near future.
Their range of rapidly developing products includes standard and advanced wound care dressings, absorbents, skin protectants, peak flow meters, gloves, surgical tapes and additional medical devices. Years worth of research has gone into these for skin and wound improvement, and the “effectiveness is in the research!”

  • Brain Implants to reverse paralysis

Remarkable progress is being made my scientists with the development of brain implants aiming to restore movement to people who have been robbed of it due to a spinal cord injury.
The implant reads the patient’s brain impulses in order to send signals to prosthetics to allow for freedom of movement, this is achieved alongside the retraining of the brain to react to these signals. The brain signals get translated into electrical signals to send to the prosthetic.
The research is ongoing and scientists hope to bring it to the market in the near future.

  • Sight for the Blind

Progress for technologies aiming to help the blind ‘see’ are seriously taking off! Israeli start up ‘OrCam’ have created glasses to be worn by someone who is partially sighted or full blind in order to regain full independence and make day to day life a lot easier.
The OrCam ‘MyEye’ glasses have a small camera on the side, which takes pictures of what is in front of you and discretely offers a description, and can even read small print text. The glasses even understand and describe products and money. More significantly recognise faces of those you teach it to remember, and tells you their name!

A second product named ‘eSight3 glasses’ claim to actually help people with sight impairments to see, whereas the OrCam simple offers independence through glasses with convenient and incredible audio-description, but is slightly more discreet. The esight3 device is for people with ‘low-sight’ that are legally blind.
eSight3 uses a high-speed, high definition camera to allow the person wearing them to see what’s before them clearly in full colour video images. The user experiences no lag time, can zoom in for ease, control colour, contrast, focus and can even take photos and videos on the device!

The eSight3 glasses currently cost $9,995 compared to the OrCam which costs $3,500.

  • Non-harmful breast scans

With breast cancer being a leading cause of sickness and death in women, ‘IBreastExam’ is a game-changing form of medical technology which allows you to perform painless and accurate breast scans. It is also free from any harmful radiations and is said to only take 5 minutes.
This equipment was developed in India, inspired by the number of women who cannot afford expensive, tardional breast scans, coupled with the number of women suffering from breast cancer being the highest in in India.
This is how it works:

This device could possibly save millions of lives and how a lot of money on annual health care!

  • Printable Joints

New technology is now allowing medical professionals to print synthetic cartilage to fit perfectly to make eplacement joints via a 3D printer. The printer allows for parts that fit the exact anatomy of the patient, creating the best and long-lasting results. Furthermore, this new kind of cartilage is the first match to human cartilage in elasticity and strength, and not being rejected by the body.
 
Whilst all these ‘new’ technologies have been around for a while in the research lab, they are just beginning to make real difference and are definitely ones to watch in 2017!