Showing posts with label Regenerative Medicine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Regenerative Medicine. Show all posts

July 15, 2013

Those Are Some Prosthetics


Wow, prosthetics have come a long way--these are tough!

This video from Biodapt shows their high-performance Moto Knee being used in a variety of action sports including snowmobiling, motor biking, mountain biking, horseback riding, water skiing, snow boarding, and jet skiing. 

Bloomberg BusinessWeek (11 July 2013) explains how the Moto Knee has hydraulic components that provide "tension and range of motion for intense physical activity."

They cost around $6,000 and don't replace the regular walking version, but Mike Schultz, the developer understands the need for these advanced prosthetics having lost a leg himself in a 2008 competitive snowmobiling accident. 

I think it's wonderful that these high-tech devices are being made available for disabled people to be able to do a wide range of exciting activities. 

My hope is that as the technology continues to advance that we can have--like a person's legs--one prosthetic device that is adaptive for use in every day use as well as more intense activities and sports. 

It is hard to imagine people voluntarily trading their body parts for mechanical implants--but one day, in the not too distant future, these mechanical limbs will not only be a substitute for repair of real body parts, but will actually provide some superior capabilities--they will be used for body augmentation--and thus even be desirable by those who haven't lost limbs. 

What gives a leg up to prosthetics, as Hugh Herr in the Wall Street Journal (12 July 2013) put it is "that the designed parts of the body can improve in time, whereas the normal body, the biological body, degrades in time."

With regenerative medicine and replacement parts by design, more than ever our physical bodies will be just the transient vessel that houses our heart, mind and soul--that which really makes us, us. ;-)
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July 4, 2013

The Five Phases Of Medicine

In many respects, medicine has come a really long way, and yet in other ways it seems like it still has so far to go. 

For example, while antibiotics are used to routinely treat many bacterial infections, there are few antiviral treatments currently available--and we are left with the proverbial, "take two aspirin and call me in the morning."

Similarly, heart attacks, strokes, cancers and so many other ailments still take their victims and leave the bereaving family asking why?

In thinking about medicine, there are five major historical phases:

1. Do nothing: Get hurt or ill, and you're as good as dead. You shudder at the words "There is nothing we can do for you." Average lifespan for folks, 30s.  If you're lucky (or wealthy), you may make it into your 40s or even reach 50. 

2. Cut it: Diseased or damaged limb or body part, chop it off or cut it out surgically.  I still remember when the people in my grandparents generation called doctors, butchers. 

3. Replace it: When something is kaput, you replace it--using regenerative medicine, such as stem cell therapy (e.g. for bone marrow transplants or even for growing new tissue for teeth) and bioprinters (like a 3-D printer) to make new ones. 

4. Heal it: Envision a future with self-healing microbes (based on nanotechnology) in the blood and tissues that detect when a body part is dangerously ill and deploys repair drones to fix them.  There is no need to cut it off or replace it, you just fix it. And perhaps with DNA "profiling"(don't like that word), we'll be able to tell what a person is predisposed to and provide proactive treatments. 

5. Eliminate it: Ok, this is way out there, but could there come a time, when with technology (and of course, G-d's guiding hand) that we can eradicate most disease. Yes, hard to imagine, and with diseases that adapt and morph into other strains, it would be hard to do--but that doesn't mean it's impossible. 

I still am shocked in the 21st century with all the medical advances and technology that we have that the doctors still say for everything from routine colds, to viruses, sores, growths, and more--"Oh, there's nothing we can do for that." 

Yet, there is what to look forward to for future generations in terms of better medicine and perhaps with longer and better quality of life.

My grandfather used to say, "No one gets old without suffering"--let's hope and pray for less and less suffering with future medical technology advances. ;-)

(Source Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)
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