Featured article by Robert Cordray, Independent Technology Author
The phrase “medical microchips” may elicit a science fiction-esque sense of imaginative fancy, but as healthcare technology advances, use of such devices becomes more and more plausible. Medical professionals have been working to interface with the human brain for years using electroencephalography, but now comes the opportunity to track and interact with brain waves on a more intimate level.
In the future, medical microchips could be used to treat epilepsy, to regulate hormones, and to conquer bodily paralysis. While the technology isn’t there yet, the medical field is well on its way to once again stepping up patient treatment and improving quality of life. It’s worthwhile to take a look at the future that medical microchips may bring about in hospitals.
Epilepsy
Through the currently-used practice of electroencephalography, medical practitioners can monitor an individual’s brain waves, epileptic or otherwise, through the use of a wired cap. Children preparing to undergo surgery to treat their epilepsy have their brain waves observed through this method so that medical professionals can predict upcoming seizures.
The implemented sensor-wire cap isn’t always perfectly accurate, however, prevented as it is from directly interacting with the brain by the skull (which isn’t really a bad thing, when you think about it). Through the use of medical microchips, however, medical professions would be able to gather data from the brain directly and receive more accurate health information for it. Medical microchips here seek to improve on already existing technology and to potentially intercept the overstimulation that sets of a seizure without having to perform surgery. We can expect some of this technology to eventually be tested on in ACLS online classes.
Paralysis
In being embedded in the brain, medical microchips will be able to, through outside stimulation, communicate through electrical signals with the brain and body at large so long as the chip itself remains undamaged.
Taking this into consideration, it’s possible that individuals who have been paralyzed, either by an accident or since birth, will be able to have a chip implanted so that they’ll be able to move limbs that have otherwise been forced dormant. This aid will increase mobility and allow for a greater sense of personal freedom, addressing both the physical and psychological troubles a paralyzed patient may endure.
Medical microchips can also come in handy when fitting a patient with an artificial limb. Consider the development of bionic eyes and the increase in their ability that could come from assistance via a microchip in the user’s brain. The opportunities for improved quality of life are endless, not in fixing an individual but in allowing them to operate as their best selves.
Hormone Regulation
Hormone regulation already exists in a variety of forms, including birth control implants. Brain-based hormone regulation, however, could aid not only birth control, but also over-productive thyroids or gender transitions in identifying individuals. The more interactive involvement with hormone production would allow for greater control over the type and amount of a hormone being produced – and if a slowing of the production of thyroxine doesn’t address the symptoms you’re experiencing, for example, then a reprogramming can have it go to work on triiodothyronine, instead.
Health Analysis
In interacting with the brain and body, medical microchips may someday be able to do more than monitor brain waves. It may be possible that these microchips could perform full health scans from inside the body, delivering medical professionals up-to-to-minute details about an individual’s condition. Not only could this assist with day to day health, but it would assist in the diagnostic process when an individual is well and truly sick. Patients could receive care more quickly and accurately thanks to reports dropped in by their medical microchips.
Conclusion
It’s a little strange to think of hardware living in someone’s head. In many ways, medical microchips that can monitor a person’s body exist further off in the future. The opportunities, however, are already being explored, and it’s been proven that there are several of immediate medical issues that could be better treated with the assistance of a medical microchip. With so much within medicine being aided by technology, like medical billing and coding online courses, it makes sense that microchips would be part of the future.
The future of healthcare is precarious, sitting both as a business endeavor and an exploration into technology that is yet to be. Improved quality of life, however, should always be the priority, and medical microchips are said to have the capability to provide just that.
