Monitoring Vital Functions

The pacemaker is one of the standard instruments used for treating heart patients. Likewise, monitoring the body’s signals can be done easily by implanting little devices inside the body. According to Jarno Riistama, a researcher from the Tampere University of Technology (TUT), such new measuring devices and applications hold great potential for the future tech-savvy generation.

The EKG or electrocardiogram which can be implanted into the body assists with monitoring your health. This is useful especially in emergencies as it gives paramedics and other medical officials an instant look at your EKG data.

This little instrument was developed by TUT in 2003 and thus has been utilized not just to monitor the health statistics of humans but also that of cattle. It is useful towards providing information regarding a bovine’s stress levels and also makes it easier to monitor how it responds to varied conditions.

Other participants in the research include the MTT Agrifood Research Finland and the University of Helsinki.

Riistama however states that while implantable devices such as the EKG exhibit positive results, it still needs more R&D. Meanwhile, he estimates that these devices will be out in the market in around ten year’s time. The decade long wait is attributed to a whole host of tests and approval procedures necessary to ensure that failure is impossible.

Apart from this implantable device, researchers at TUT have also developed one that monitors vital functions without having to be implanted, and instead works from the information it receives from the surface of the skin. This ultra-light device holds much potential not only for its size, but its production cost which is estimated at a mere few cents per piece.