This is a very interesting study with some true curiositys. I think having these mobile electronics will help out the medical staff extremely well. What I'm curious about is how they actually measure the pain. Individuals pain thresholds are enough to drive a medical staff crazy, but what part of the technology says this is a certain number on their 1-10 scale?
This is really interesting, and what a solution this will really bring in medical world.
But my thinking seems alongside with Jay-Bond- how accurate could this really be in a situation whereby even the patient can not tell how he is feeling.
Sensible research. This device need not 100% accurate if it can atleast detect the pain of 99% patients still it relives so much of pain.
This device can help many paediatrician to identify problems in small infants as they cant describe the pain. I wish this device to be launched soon and interested to know its performance.
That technology could potentially benefit a great many people whose pain is not adequately treated. I wonder if it could also be adapted for use in treating animals.
Well Ariella, your post is bringing to me a crucial trigger, I really believe it has been discussed a lot: how high are investment in medical technologies vs military technologies? Which is for human people the most proficient in providing benefits across for people everywhere across the globe?
@saranyati.I really admired the angle from which you viewed the pain detector.
Truly, this is going to be of a great help in the world of infants that are having one pain or the other but telling us is a problem.But what are the conditions that would aid the sensitivity of this device and will it be sensitive enough to detect anything in infants
Sensitivity definitely becomes a question here. Initially the device can start with simple stomach related pains caused because of food poisining and can include any thing to do with respiratory sytem.
“Diagnostic tool that uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and support vector machines (SVMs) to more accurately determine both the source and level of pains without any input from the patient”
Kunmi, idea is very good but accuracy and credibility about the info is very important in healthcare treatment. The whole treatment depends up on this input and hope it may be revolutionary technology in health care system.
@Jacob. The attempt to develop this electronic medical device could end up in a serious breakthrough for electronic manufacturers and in the healthcare arena. I strongly believe that accuracy and effectiveness of this tool will be carefully measured before it could reach the market. It may end up as a prayer being answered for the people undergoing chronic pains across the world.
This device can help many paediatrician to identify problems in small infants as they cant describe the pain.
@saranyatil, you are absolutely right. This device will help paediatrician to identify problems in small infants who cannot express their pain. I think this good news for infants parents too who cant understand the pain the infants are in when they are crying.
There is, therefore, a need to develop a pain assessment tool that is based on physiology, and requires no communication on the part of patients.
@Kunmi, thanks for the interesting post. Just curious to how exactly they are measuring pain ? How do you define pain in physiology terms ? Can these devices also be used on Animal pain detection ?
Medical electronics require mundane research works. Especially aspect relating to diagnosing and threatments, those two must undergo series of testing processes both hardware and software. This is to ensure system's reliability and validity as well as risk management.
I think project/research of this nature might take a while for commercialisation, as well goverment role germane to its deployment in medical centers to ensure high degree of safety in locating pain accurately. This is necessary to avoid a case like Therac 25.
Therac 25 Incident Overview, It Occured Between The Year 1985 and 1987
Therac 25 was an electronic medical device - Radiation Therapy Machine
It failed during medical treatment for cancer patients
Six patients received radiation overdoses during cancer treatment by a faulty medical linear accelerator - patients died of radiation poisoning as a result of overdoses.
Overdoses occured as a result of software defect "error".
The case since then lead to advancements in systems safety
This swiftly prompted pro-active approach from the regulatory agency (FDA) in finding causes and remediating the accidents.
I really want to thank you all for your contributions on this important topic. Pain has never being a friendly feeling. Having a tool that can detect it will foster easy diagnosis. In turn, it will be money to the manufacturers and health to the people.
There are two types of research fields - abstract and applied research. This may be more of abstract reserach and not applied research. May be they find some novel as biproduct of these research.
@_hm. I agree with you that research could be Abstact or applied. I will rather think that this research tends towards applied research because it appeared as a systematic approach to practical application of the intended purpose rather than just a short summary of a particular research. There is no reasearch that does not emanate from an idea until it is tested and generally accepted before the researchers could get the total credit.
@ Rich:Thank you very much. I think this effort should not be brushed aside by the electronic manufacturers because it could be a potential business opportunity.
If such a syste can accurately function it could be a revolutionary improvement in modern medicine. anandvy , I had suggested a similar functionality for use with infants, to a friend doing research, back in 1972. I wonder if it took this long to reach any viability.
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