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Family Tech: "The tech revolution is keeping us healthier" - December 16, 2016

High tech home medical technology used to be a thermometer.  If you were lucky, it was oral.

Today, a lot of technology you would only find in a doctor’s office or hospital has come home.  And what you find in the hospital today is truly futuristic.

At the hospital, we have robot surgical knives like the Davinci machine that can hold a scalpel rock steady. A few inches movement of the controller by the surgeon might move the scalpel a millimeter.  A tiny camera inserted into the incision along with the scalpel gives the surgeon a view he could not get without opening up a much larger incision.  This minimally invasive surgery allows faster recovery and safer surgery.

What’s even more amazing is the controller unit and the patient do not have to be in the same room.  Theoretically, this could allow a surgeon in New York to operate on a patient in Bangladesh, or on the Space Station.

Even more futuristic is IBM’s Watson.  Readers may remember Watson as IBM’s supercomputer that triumphed against “Jeopardy” champions.

They are now training it to aid in medical diagnosis.  By feeding in massive numbers of x-rays, MRI’s, cat scans and other patient data, it is hoped Watson will learn to recognize patterns indicating disease and growths human doctors might miss.

The same artificial intelligence that lets Google Photos recognize dogs in our photos and lets us search for them, could let Watson find tumors and other abnormalities.  A San Francisco startup, Enlitic Inc., claims its software in a test identified malignant tumors 50 percent more accurately than a panel of four radiologists.

Your doctor might have you swallow a large pill that is in fact a camera and transmitter.  A small unit you wear on your body receives and records the information for your doctor to examine.

At home we have our own wonders. Diabetics have blood testing units. There are home blood pressure cuffs that have digital readouts and Bluetooth connectivity to log readings to your phone.  Pulse oximeters that monitor blood oxygen saturation  help those with breathing difficulties control their breathing.

If you have someone with heart issues, for $1,200 you could have your own automatic defibrillator.  I learned in my last CPR course that home CPR is just to keep the blood flowing until a defibrillator can restore normal heart rhythm.  This can be done sooner and before the paramedics arrive with a home unit that is fully automated.

For those with other issues, there are even home breathalyzers.

Now that the baby boomers are well into their senior years — I’m on the trailing edge of boomers, so I can make this comment — home monitoring systems let our kids know we are doing OK while we remain in our own homes.

 Read the rest at www.FamilyTechOnline.com
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