Conductive gels and patch sensors resembling fashion accessories are also being developed to record cardiac, brain and muscle activity which could complement the traditional blood analysis and clinical examinations. Mechano-acoustic skin sensors that measure speech patterns and internal body sounds, like swallowing, are being explored to quantitatively measure the impact of rehabilitation in patients, such as those recovering from a stroke.

In treatment, miniscule implants placed inside the body can cross the blood-brain barrier and deliver the drug directly at the target site, even in hard-to-reach internal organs. Such devices have shown promising results in laboratory settings in reducing side effects and toxicity while increasing overall drug efficacy. This could also ensure patient compliance, a step further to the recently approved digital pill, especially in patients on long care and those with compromised cognition.

Certain implants can also electrically stimulate cardiac or brain tissues to treat conditions like irregular heartbeat, certain motor disorders, and cognitive impairments. Other implants like artificial retina and cochlear implants, restore functionalities of damaged tissues. These interventions, being referred to as ‘Bioceuticals’, could restructure conventional therapeutic options for more efficient outcomes.

In India, a lot of work has now started in this sphere. Results from a few studies have started trickling in, with most of them in development or early stages of testing. Research findings in the journal Scientific Reports by researchers from IIT Kharagpur earlier this year reported bio impedimetric analysis of cancer cells that efficiently distinguishes their aggressiveness by measuring electric field impedance in laboratory conditions. In another study published in the journal Sensors earlier this year, researchers at IIT Delhi developed a novel low-cost prosthesis based on sensors to enable normal gait kinematics, i.e. motion analysis, for lower limb amputees.

IIT Kharagpur is setting up a Bioelectronics Innovation Laboratory that aims to develop battery-free implantable miniaturized engineering systems for treatment of brain, nerve, muscle or spinal cord disorders by restoring missing neural functions. The proposed coin-sized implant will be powered wirelessly and will combine brain activity testing like electrical simulation, bio-potential recording and neuro-chemical sensing for use in rehabilitation and prosthesis.

Also Read: India’s First Smartphone Insertable Cardiac Monitor

Round-the-clock data collected from bioelectronic devices could replace the present time-point investigations and lead to better management of the health condition of patients. In addition, data from multiple people can help develop artificial intelligence algorithms and predictive tools. Such tools have already started showing analytic performance similar, and sometimes better than manual inspection by a specialist physician. In countries like India, that suffer from a shortage of qualified doctors in remote areas, such devices have immense potential. However, data standardization, data security, and privacy protection must be addressed and regulated before rolling out such interventions.

In the next few years, health monitoring, neural prosthetics, and biochemical prosthetics are expected to drive major developments in this space. Although the monitoring devices have already started testing the market in niche patient segments, it may take the implants another 5-10 years to reach health centers as they make their way through developmental and regulatory checkpoints.

Nearly 1.1 million people in the United States are considered to be legally blind. The United States typically defines someone as legally blind when the person’s central vision has degraded to 20/200, or the person has lost peripheral vision so that he sees less than 20 degrees outside of central vision.

Normal vision is 20/20, and people can usually see up to 90 degrees with their peripheral vision. So a company like Nano-Retina has developed a sophisticated and elegant solution intended to restore the sight of people who lost their vision due to retinal degenerative diseases.

The miniature Nano Retina device, the NR600 Implant, replaces the functionality of the damaged photoreceptor cells and creates the electrical stimulation required to activate the remaining healthy retinal cells. NR600 consists of two components; a miniature implantable chip and a set of eyeglasses worn by the patient.

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Read all the issues of InnoHEALTH magazine:
InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 3 (July to September 2017) – https://goo.gl/MCVjd6
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InnoHEALTH Volume 1 Issue 2 (October to December 2016) – https://goo.gl/4GGMJz
InnoHEALTH Volume 1 Issue 1 (July to September 2016) – https://goo.gl/iWAwN2

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