Zack Craft, vice president of rehabilitation technology and complex care at Total Medical Solutions identifies some of the current trends of the in-home medical device industry:
- Improvements in Home Automation. Zack says we're seeing a trend towards improved home automation, including the use of voice recognition to control electronic devices in the home. Bluetooth technology enables patients to interact with computer systems, power chairs, mobile phones, land lines, light switches and air conditioning thermostats. Being able to control temperature in the home is especially important when dialysis or wound care equipment is running -- it produces extra heat. In addition, voice recognition and other technologies help patients move beds up and down and allow video conferencing to monitor the front door -- so patients can see who is at the front door without getting out of bed.
- Products are becoming more portable. More portable devices means reduced transportation and delivery costs. For example, Zack has noticed a trend towards having patients fill their own oxygen tanks.
- Devices are getting smaller, cost less. Zack sees devices getting smaller and easier to use. He points out that wound vacs are now as small as a Sony Walkman radio device. Smaller devices provide the patient increased mobility and make it easier for patients to use devices in the home. Because the devices are shrinking in size, costs are decreasing as well.
Zack was recently quoted in Assembly Magazine's article Medical Device Assembly: There's No Place Like Home.
Thought-Controlled Prosthetic Limb Systems: Coming Soon
In other quite interesting technology news, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab has won a contract to test a thought-controlled Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) system. Read the full story Hopkins Applied Physics Lab to Test Thought-Controlled Prosthetic Limb System at Robotics Trends website.
The MPL design offers 22 degrees of motion, including independent motion of each finger, in a package that weighs the same as a natural limb (about nine pounds). The MPL is capable of "...unprecedented mechanical agility and is designed to respond to the user's thoughts." Within the year, the Johns Hopkins APL team expects to initiate testing with a high spinal cord injury patient. The test results are designed to help upper-limb amputees and spinal cord injury patients, as well as others who have lost the ability to use their natural limbs, to have as normal a life as possible, despite severe injuries or degenerative neurological disease.
