Medical Robots: Everything You Need To Know About Medical Robots AndHow It Works.

image credit: UL Solutions.

Things are quite changing a lot in this 21st century, the technological application is almost taking over most of the industry, and soon artificial intelligence robots will take over several jobs thereby displacing humans.  This article is focused on the best medical robots.

Medical Robots are those Ai powered robots that can serve as human assistants in the health care services

Will you be able to trust your life to a robotic surgeon? How about entrusting your mental health to medical robots? We know that there will be mixed answers to the above question,  while some people would want to give it a try,  others may be uncomfortable with the idea of a robotics surgeon performing surgery on them or even comforting them in times of distress. 

Though matter what our opinion is on this matter, medical robots usage is becoming an ideal thing in the world of healthcare.  In the last few years, there has been an increase in interest in medical robots within the field of biomedical engineering. Some big firms and businesses are willing to commit huge funds to the project too.

Important Of Medical Robot 

There is a good reason why medical robots should be developed some of those reasons includes:

Accuracy: When to accuracy, robots are more accurate than humans, their hands never shake. They perform their roles according to specifications. 

Longer Working Time:  Humans can easily get tired especially when it involves performing more complicated surgery, unlike humans medical robots are tireless, they can work several hours before their power will get low.

Instructional Base Performance: Robots can only do what it is instructed to do, they can even perform precise movements beyond the human range of Motion. They can also be able to stay with patients as long as necessary. 

Automated Task: Robots can automate lower-level tasks. They can as well leave the high-level work to humans.

Lower Labor Cost: With medical Robot health care owners can spend less amount of money on labor, this is because those robots will be performing some tasks that human employers can do.

Medical Robot That is Changing The World Of Health Care.

Several robots are being used in hospitals and treatment centers to enhance the Quality of care given to patients. These robots are carefully designed and developed to carry out such tasks. The whole task has been automated through a robotic system.

Below are some of the best medical robots in use.

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1.  The Da Vinci Surgical Robot 

This might sound odd to you, but it is true. It has been reported that about 250,000 people die in the U.S. yearly because of medical errors, some of the errors are likely preventable. While this is in general view, we believe that the more control surgeons have in their operations the better.  With The da Vinci SurgSystemystem, a multi-equipped wonderbot is used to minimize Surgical errors and make surgery easier for thousands of patients.

The da Vinci Surgical System provides surgeons with more accurate control for a wide range of Surgical procedures. This robot uses a special magnified 3D high-definition vision and control which are strapped on a surgeon’s wrists and hands. These robots help to make tiny and exact incisions that human hands would find difficult to make without mistakes.  And this robot provides enhanced controls to surgeons. This will also make the patient heal fast since the surgery is less invasive than traditional surgery.

Hope, that sounds interesting, right? don’t stop reading as we move down to the next medical robot on our list.

2.  The PARO Therapeutic Robot 

Unlike the first robot we discussed, this robot is not specifically made to save a life. This robot is designed to help improve the quality of life during the recovery stage.  It stays with patients recovering from surgery, depression, or other mental sickness.  The PARO Therapeutic Robot looks like a baby harbor, it’s an interactive device that is designed to provide animal therapy without relying on live animals.  Animal therapy has been used for a long to ease patient stress. Why this robot was adopted for this purpose is that there are not always trained animals available to do it. However, a friendly animal-like robot PARO can do the job effectively.

PARO has been used with elderly patients suffering from dementia, and it has been proven and verified that it decreases stress and offers a high level of comfort to anxious patients.

The PARO Therapeutic Robot can respond when his name is called, it also enjoys being stroked. It also naps, blinks like a human, wiggles its flippers, and can make funny little sounds for its owner.  This robot charges by sucking on a charger shaped that looks like a pacifier.

3. The Xenex Germ-zapping Robot.

This robot was also designed to minimize medical and Surgical errors, and hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). Over the years hospital-acquired infections have become a widespread problem in the health care sector. With the introduction of the Xenex Germ-zapping Robot, such a problem is hoped to be tackled.  According to the CDC, there were 722,000 HAIs in U.S. acute care hospitals in 2011.  These HAIs occur because hospital rooms can’t be cleaned with 100% sterility. It is virtually not possible to achieve such cleanliness. Patients who are immunocompromised are more prone to bacterial infection.

To combat this ugly incident from happening, the Xenex which is an automated and portable medical robot, is used to disinfect the whole hospital room within some minutes.

To do this, the robot makes use of pulse, full-spectrum UV Rays that eliminate a wide range of infectious bacteria.  This robot is designed to carry out effective cleaning which will in turn reduce HAIs such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) by killing the one icroorganism that is responsible for the infection.  This robot is cute, it looks like R2 – D2 designed to save lives.

4.   The TUG 

The TUG is an autonomous robot designed and created by Aethon Inc. Why did this company decide to create this robot? Well, the company noticed that transporting supplies, meals, and other materials through the hospital is a drag on efficiency.  It will take time to move meals, lab samples, waste, lines, and other items through a typical 200-bedded hospital, doing this will take about 53 miles per day. 

TUG can be able to move ferry supplies to where they are needed, allowing employers to do the high-level task. 

In 2015, when the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center at Mission Bay began operation, they employed 25 TUG robots in other to improve transportation operations, Those TUG are already programmed with the hospital floor and also have a good number of sensors that ensures that they don’t run into any other obstacle on their way to the lab.  This robot also asks people to stand aside if they are approaching a congested area.

5. The CyberKnife 

This is a robotic Surgical system that offers radiation therapy to tumors using sun-millimeter precision. The CyberKnife was originally invented in the late 1990s; the robots are now widely used in treating cancer at hospitals and treatment centers all over the United States.  This robot is not a knife as the name implies, it is a radiation source mounted on a robot, this robot can deliver radiation to a tumor. The robot can reposit itself at many angles to Target the tumor from different sizes without the patient repositioning.

This robot has made treatment of tumors in those areas of the body that were complicated to operate on possible. Those areas include the prostate, head, neck, and liver. This type of surgery is non-invasive, it minimizes the exposure of healthy organs to radiation.

The CyberKnife has been effectively used to treat long-term prostate cancers.

Advantages of Medical Robot 

Using robots for medical purposes comes with several advantages. Below are some of them.

• It offers minimally invasive surgery, which means human surgeons don’t need to use their hands to access the body and also incisions are more tiny than with conventional surgery.
• Quick recovery, because robot-aided surgery is invasive, it will likely take your body less time to recover when compared to traditional surgery.
• With robotic-assisted surgery, there is less pain and Blood loss, this is because there are smaller incisions and better precision.
• There are smaller chances of infection during robotic-aided surgery.  Infection can delay your recovery and keep you in the hospital longer than expected.

The disadvantage of Medical Robot 

As the saying, everything that has advantages also has disadvantages, here are the disadvantages of using a Medical Robot.

• The major disadvantage of medical robots is their cost, it is very costly to purchase and as such it’s only available at the center that can afford it.
• It requires specially trained surgeons.
• A surgeon may be required to convert smaller incisions into larger incisions if there are complications. Those complications may arise from scar tissue from previous surgeries.
• There is a high risk of nerve damage and compression.
• Robotic malfunction can be very fatal, However, it’s extremely rare for the robot to malfunction.

How much does a medical robot cost?

There are no fixed prices for medical robot

Some medical robots can be costly while others can be gotten at a fair price.

To determine the price of a medical robot certain things needed to be considered, they include the 

• Features of the robot
• Model
• Durability.
• The medical department assists Etc.

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Will medical robots be used in the future?

 Wondering if medical robots will still be relevant in the future? I want to certainly assure you that the use of medical robots will be high in the future.

Medical Robots have been used to save lives and reduce stress for medical personnel, as the days go by new possibilities for medical robots will be rolling out which will help them to stay aloof and useful to humanity.

In all, medical robots will stay in the future, rendering more possibilities to humanity.

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How many medical robots are there in the world

Currently, the number of medical robots in the world is very high.

All the medical robots in the world when combined will be more than 1 billion.

They have different functions and areas they can be used for in medical departments.

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CONCLUSION 

Robots are taking over every sector, and in the nearest future, we would not be without a choice but to embrace it.  The world is changing and we should also adapt to any changes it brings.