The field of robotics has helped doctors to cure and operate patients more successfully and played a critical and positive part in providing healthcare to patients. A medical robot, used in medical science, may be of any kind; a surgical robot to carry surgical operations, a Rehabilitation robot to help in therapy of sick or elderly people with dysfunction of body parts that effect movement, Biorobot designed to reproduce the cognition of humans and animals or a Telepresence robot which helps medical team to communicate from distant areas.
Go through the article to see 5 medical robots that have the potential to transform healthcare.
1. Autonomous robot surgeon that can work without the supervision of humans
In robotic surgery breakthrough, the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR) did amazing and unbelievable job by stitching up the small intestine of a pig using its own intelligence and vision. Although the stitching procedure was carried out in the occasional supervision of humans available for help. The most noteworthy point about the STAR is that, it performed better than the humans given the same task. This proves the idea of robotics in the field of surgery a successful experiment. But it cannot be claimed yet that robots can replace humans in operating room because STAR did 60% trails completely on its own and was guided in 40% experiments.
2. A robot that embraces heart to keep it pumping
A team of an engineer, a cardiac surgeon, and a graduate student made a fantastic robot in three years that embraces the mammalian heart to keep it pumping blood. This funnel shaped robot compresses and twists like the heart. It keeps restoring the normal blood flow after heart failure. This implantable soft robot keep heart pumping blood without even touching the blood. This robot is really advancement in healthcare to keep heart functioning properly.
3. Amoeba-like robot programmed with DNA
Living robots in the field of robotics, is the most inspiring. Though is more complicated idea but not impossible. Some researchers of Japan dealt with this challenge, and designed a tiny robotic system that moves like a living cell. This robotic system is called molecular robot. The robot is like an amoeba in size and uniformity. Filled with a fluid, it contains only biological and chemical components. It is controlled by DNA and its motion can be turned on and off with DNA signals that gives response to light. This is a unique molecular robot with this kind of controllable motility.
4. Magnetic microbots wirelessly steered into the body of living organism
A small bead like robot of 50 micrometer, slightly larger than the ballpoint ball, was slid in to the limp body of a numb pig into the tube of a magnetic resonance imaging machine (MRI). The experiment was conducted to test a program designed to maneuver the machine’s magnetic forces that guided the bead. In 2006, for the first time, an object was wirelessly steered into the body of a living organism. That small robot was able to move wirelessly in arteries and arterioles i.e. using the magnetic field, for some delicate surgeries. Researchers are working hard to make too small microbots to move in narrow vessels as drug carriers to treat many dangerous diseases like cancer.
5. Da Vinci robot helping surgeons in saving lives
Introduced in July 2012 for the first time, the Da Vinci robot is another marvelous machine helping surgeons in most delicate surgeries like heart, ear, nose, throat, kidney and lung surgery. Da Vinci has mechanized arms with pincer fingers, goggles that give 10 times magnified, 3-D, re-produced and technicolor visualization of the internal organs of the patient. The remote surgical gloves help surgeons controlling tiny instruments inside the narrow and most difficult cavities of the patient. Its electronics arms have saved a lot of lives.
