What Bionics Is And Why It Is Important In Todays World
Because of medical and scientific advances around the world, the human body can be repaired and aided in whole new ways involving medical bionics. Many are wondering “what is bionics?”and how is it going to change the practice of medicine, and the life span of the human race? All over the world scientists and medical researchers are working on bionic solutions to many medical problems humans face, like failing body organs, loss of sight, loss of hearing, amputation or irreversible injury to arms and legs, strokes and head injuries. Great progress is being made in the field of bionics in many countries around the world.
What Is Bionics?
The Center for Bionic Medicine(CBM), a research program at the Rehabilitation Institute Of Chicago has its own answer to “what is bionics?” Their definition for Bionic Medicine is medical procedures using the most modern technology to improve function and quality of life for people living with the loss of one or more limbs. CBM has been working on a technique called “targeted re innervation” to allow patients to control more functions with their prosthetic limbs in a more natural, easier way. In this procedure amputated nerves are implanted to spare muscle and skin in the remaining part of an amputee’s limb. The idea is for the nerves to grow into the muscle allowing additional control signals to operate the prosthesis. CBM is working on the development of new advanced prosthesis that have shoulder, wrist, elbow and hand parts used with haptic interfaces to allow the sensation of touch and operation in a more natural movement.
Yet another view of “what is bionics?” comes to us in the 2008 Journal of Natural Engineering in a special edition on medical bionics. Robert Shepherd, PhD, University of Melbourne, Australia, defines medical bionics as a rapidly expanding field with new engineering applications for neurological disorders and with successful application of engineering technology to make medical bionic devices for the replacement or enhancement of damaged organs and limbs by using engineered devices to interface with the body and supplement function. Examples of this approach to bionics in medicine are spinal cord stimulators to manage chronic neurological pain, deep brain stimulators to lessen movement patterns in Parkinson’s disease and auditory bionic prostheses making it possible for the deaf to hear by using deep brain stimulation. Also in the developmental stage is a brain machine interface that will make it possible for patients to better control artificial limbs and wheel chairs.
What is bionics? It is a chance for the scientific and medical fields to cooperate in research that will enable the blind to see, the deaf to hear, those with damaged organs like heart, lungs, liver and kidneys to heal, chronic pain to be controlled with spinal cord or brain stimulators, paraplegics to walk, Arthritic joints to be replaced, organ replacements to be grown from a patients own stem cells, artificial organs the body will accept, artificial arms and hands that function in a natural way and much more. The world wide research into bionic medicine makes new advances every day.
There are rapid advances being made in the development of new robotics, prostheses and other bionic devices to help all the wounded soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. No longer will these brave men and women lead the diminished lives of past wounded soldiers. By blending electronics, robotics and human psychology the scientific and medical professions have improved artificial limbs and other body parts like eyes so that they function more like normal body parts. Soon patients will even have the sensation of touch in prosthetic hands. What is bionics? It is a miracle for those who need replacement limbs and organs.
Another area of bionics is the growing of replacement organs from a patient’s own stem cells. In this technique pioneered by Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, a Spanish transplantologist, synthetic materials are combined with a patient’s stem cells to construct specific organs that are then transplanted into the patients body to function normally. In 2008 a transplantation of a patient trachea grown from their own stem cells was successful. It worked so well that after 4 days it was hard to tell it from the rest of the respiratory tract. Many other organs will be able to be grown from stem cells in the very near future. Dr. Macchiarini ,along with his team of European specialists, is working on organ regeneration that is conducted entirely within the body.
This new and fast growing branch of medicine is not without problems and controversy. There are ethical and practical problems to consider.
There is tremendous expense involved in the design, development, testing and marketing of any bionic device or procedure. Who will pay for the development of a new bionic product? Who will profit from it? Who will be able to benefit from this new technology? Will only the rich be able to afford it, or will insurance companies or the government supplement the use of bionics for all worthy patients? What is bionics, a health miracle only for the rich or one for everyone who can benefit from its use?
Who will govern the design, development and marketing of bionic technologies to insure safety and effectiveness for the ultimate users? How will the technology be tested and on who? Who will determine what is bionics and when the technology is ready for use on patients?
Who will oversee the ethical considerations for medical bionics? Who will decide what is bionics that is effective and if it will really benefit patients? Who will protect desperate patients from people claiming to have a bionic medical cure, but only take their money and use questionable or fake bionic medicine? There are those in the medical profession who will use questionable research techniques, fake test results and cut corners to get their product to the market faster and they must be caught and stopped. The good people in bionic medicine need to be assisted to do their research correctly and take the time needed to bring safe, effective technologies to the field of medicine.
The field of bionic medicine promises to improve millions of lives around the world with its innovative solutions to medical problems and catastrophic injuries. Soldiers coming home from wars with missing legs and arms, or with serious head injuries can be helped to live better lives with better prosthetics and other bionic devices. Those suffering from organ failure or arthritis can have a better chance of living longer and with less pain. Hearing and sight loss can be remedied with improved bionic devices. What is bionics? A way for the future to look much brighter because of medical bionics and the world wide research being done right now.
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