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Bionic devices are implants that replace biological functions lost due to nerve damage. They use electrical signals to stimulate the remaining nerve cells following disease or injury. Currently, the bionic eye is under development with several groups across the globe seeking to provide a viable device for enabling sight impaired patients to perceive light. Pacemakers were the first bionic device types but have been expanded to include not only cardiac pacemakers, but also urinary and diaphragm pacing devices. Similarly implantable electrodes have been used for functional electrical stimulation, encompassing a range of devices which enable movement of muscles in patients with nerve damage, such as paraplegics. These devices perform functions which can include limb movement, sphincter and erectile control. The more widely recognized bionic devices are the cochlear implant and the bionic eye. Actively stimulated nerve guides for repairing nerve injury and stimulated wound healing electrodes may also be considered bionic devices.
The COVID-19 pandemic poses special challenges to patients who require Bionic transplants. Those waiting for transplant or who had received a transplant tend to have more severe disease due to weak immunity. Patients with severe heart, lung, or liver failure and waiting for transplant are at a high risk for dying if a transplant does not happen within a short period of time. But if there are clusters of COVID-19 disease in the region around the hospital or if there are COVID-19 patients already admitted in the hospital then, the course ahead becomes a quandary. Performing a transplant surgery in such situation will increase the risk of exposure to the recipient during the surgery and in the recovery period. This exposure could happen from the donor or healthcare providers or other patients in the hospital. It is possible that the hospital resources could become limited due to COVID-19 cases and the care of the transplant recipients may get compromised. Non-urgent transplant surgeries such as kidney transplants in relatively stable patients on dialysis may be avoided in areas of high prevalence of COVID-19. If the recipient is critically ill and the surgery is unavoidable then care has to be taken to check both the donor and the recipient for COVID-19 prior to transplant. All these health hazard have resulted in a slowdown in the bionic transplant market.
Bionic technology can be defined as the flow of concepts from engineering to biology and vice versa. The advancement in bionic technology over the years has helped scientists to create various innovative materials that enhance human ability. Bionic devices such as prosthetic arms and prosthetic legs have even helped people with disabilities lead a normal life. But science fiction has literally raised expectation, and researchers and innovators all over the globe are putting best of their efforts to build bionic tech that could someday actually make superhuman. Some examples are:
The H.U.L.C exoskeleton with a titanium body was developed by Berkley Bionics and Lockheed Martin mainly keeping soldiers in mind. It is a 3rd gen exoskeleton, which allows the wearer to easily lift up to 200 pounds of weight and also decreases the amount of metabolic energy required by the wearer. The exoskeleton essentially provides a person with superhuman capabilities by increasing the strength as well as endurance.
The bionic lens is a proposition by many developers and manufacturers that will have a virtual display and could have multiple uses from improving eyesight to video gaming. A company called Ocumetics Technology Corporation is at the forefront of this technology.
A large portion of people in the world is insulin dependent due to diabetic problems. These people not only have to keep a control on the food items they eat but also have to go through the trouble of taking insulin regularly. However, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation is in the process of creating an artificial pancreas, which will be able to monitor the sugar levels in the blood and adjust the insulin levels of the body accordingly.
Road traffic accidents is the leading cause of death by injury and the tenth-leading cause of all deaths globally, which now make up a surprisingly significant portion of the worldwide burden of ill-health. An estimated 1.2 million people are killed in road crashes each year, and as many as 50 million are injured, occupying 30% to 70% orthopedic beds in hospitals in developing countries and if present trends continue, road traffic injuries are predicted to be the third-leading contributor to the global burden of disease and injury by 2020. This drastic increase in road accidents has resulted in broken and lost limbs. The bionic devices provide these people with a second chance at life and thus, the market is at steady growth.
Current bionic devices typically use metal electrodes to stimulate the nerve cells. While these electrodes have been sufficient for the past few decades and in devices which are implanted for only a few years, these metal electrodes are now becoming a limitation. As the miniaturization of electronics continues to allow us to reduce the size of implants and offer patients devices with more functionality, there is a need to create smaller, more densely packed electrodes. At these sub-micron sizes, metal electrodes cannot be safely used for multiple decades, as is now required by cochlear implant patients who receive devices as children. As a result there is significant interest in new electrode materials.
Over this time there have been developed a number of electrically conductive materials which can improve on the performance of conventional metallic electrodes. However, since these materials are still recognized by the human body as foreign, they still suffer from a process known as fibrous encapsulation, where the body produces scar-like cells which surround and wall off the implant. An optimal implant will form an intimate connection with the surrounding cells, without inciting growth of scar tissue.
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