In order to ensure that we are capable of fighting all the many and varied threats to our physical and emotional wellbeing, the field of medical engineering has to continually innovate and devise new technologies to underpin newer and safer medical devices. In this article, we take a look at a small selection of the most exciting emerging technologies that will be incorporated into medical devices of the future.
Google is one of the many tech companies who have patented new technologies relating to augmented reality. A few years ago, Google unveiled their Google Glasses, a pair of glasses with an embedded computer. When wearing these glasses, users would see a digital overlay placed over the real world. This overlay showed users information about their surroundings and could even show the wearer where to go when driving or walking in order to reach their destination as quickly as possible.
Medical devices which make use of the same principles are now being developed and are inching ever closer to becoming a reality. A clinic in Germany has developed an iPad app which allows surgeons to see the locations of patient’s internal structures and organs before cutting into them.
It is hoped by many computer scientists that we might one day be able to create an artificial, digital brain which is capable of the same complex feats of information processing as the human brain. Such a machine could have huge implications for the development of artificial intelligence and could give us new ways of approaching many problems in science. For the field of medicine, it would offer us unprecedented insights into how our own brains work and how we can identify and fix the effects of brain injuries and illnesses.
Medical 3D Printing
Believe it or not, there are already people walking the Earth who have artificial organs inside them, organs which were printed out using a 3D printer. 3D printing technology has always been impressive; it offers us a great deal of promise as a means of revolutionizing the industry and the way that we view and consume everyday products. However, in terms of benefiting our species, it is its medical applications which are the most significant.
As well as allowing us to produce artificial organs for transplant, 3D printing could also one day be used to allow patients to print out their own drugs at home, and even to print out nanobots, prosthetic limbs, pacemakers and other internal medical devices. For companies like DeviceLab, 3D printing is a game changing technology for Medical Device Engineering
Wearable Diagnostic Devices
Over the last decade, a number of different researchers, including a Mexican teenager, have produced prototype smart bras. These bras use a variety of simple methods to constantly monitor breasts for abnormal growths and any other early warning signs of breast cancer. Such wearable diagnostic devices could one day play a significant role in the field of diagnostic medicine by allowing constant, passive monitoring of patients.
These are just a small selection of the technologies which look set to change the world of medical engineering over the next couple of decades. Science is notoriously unpredictable however, particularly where technology is concerned, and so there’s no telling what other technologies will find their way into hospitals and into the next generation of medical devices.