Continuing the Business Times' tomorrowSERIES features, we look at how the practice of medicine will evolve into the future from its most public facet - a visit to the doctor's office - to the wider possibilities stemming from research currently being carried out today. Either way, be prepared for just a brief glimpse of the wide potential encompassed by the world of tomorrowMEDICINE.
Visiting a doctor's office is a regular occurrence for almost every ailment you can experience today. Rarely do doctors make house calls (home visits) any more. But what may be the exception today, may regain its status as the tomorrow's norm. In fact, many believe that personalisation is the key to tomorrowMEDICINE and, as such, incorporating diagnostic devices into our everyday living space may be the best way to incrementally track changes to our bodies.
House calls
An idea we first touched on in our tomorrowHOME feature a while ago, the diagnostic tools of tomorrowMEDICINE will most likely be seamlessly integrated into our future homes as well as other items our bodies are regularly in contact with. From our clothes to the carpeting we walk on to sensors in our toilet seats to even biotechnology which continuously travels pathways within our bodies (cardiovascular, neural, etc.) and tracks the minutest of changes that occur, the diagnostic tools of tomorrow will be non-stop data collectors always transmitting to either our personal doctor's office or to a central health authority database.
Aside from just diagnostics, the doctors of the future or their artificial intelligences may also be able to treat symptoms or adjust dosages of prescribed medicines remotely from off-site, concepts which suggest the forced obsolescence of today's cutting-edge technology embodied by two-dimensional doctor consults via telemedicine.
In addition to this is the realisation that, as home computers evolve and get smarter, the concept of a family doctor or a general physician may ultimately prove unnecessary. Many suggest this may be entirely replaced by home computers or even biotechnolgy implants which diagnose and heal commonplace diseases without consulting external doctors, similar to current virus guards on today's computers.
However, others also argue that the personal touch and the comfort level unique to visiting a human doctor may counter this trend towards a fully automated healing process as suggested by some peoples' preferences towards talking to a human as opposed to interacting with automated menu systems which are becoming more an more prevalent everyday.
Either way, from pills that contain ingestible microelectronics which allow tracking and even adjusting the efficacy of the drugs that you have taken; to liquid gels that stop bleeding by transforming into solids when it comes into contact with blood; and even robotic nurses and caregivers for the elderly and infirm; tomorrowMEDICINE will be more about taking care of you the individual instead of you the human being.
Future therapies / tools
While house calls and efficacious self medication may be the public face of tomorrowMEDICINE, the true potential of patient treatment / rehabilitation is elusive to even the dreamers of the medical field today. This is because these stem from a variety of different, just-introduced areas such as:
nanotechnology, biotechnology, mechanics, information technology, robotics, metallurgy, chemistry, engineering, etc. Just a smattering of ideas that make up the possibilities of tomorrowMEDICINE is more than enough to astound anyone. Even many futurists touting their own personal vision of what's to come admit being incapable of grasping the wider canvass of what's to come for this most vital of sciences. While bionic limbs, synthetic organs and medical robots have been talked about for many years, what's even more amazing to consider are the multitude of new areas of research cropping up virtually overnight that will feed into our reality in the future. And, since multiple fields of inquiry and bridged and transcended, our choices are further expanded by the varied courses of concurrent pure study ongoing at the present time. The possibilities in this case? Truly infinite.
Interestingly, some more recently popular concepts conjectured have been in the following areas: regenerative medicine, biotechnology and cellular reprogramming. And, as such, these require further examination.
Basically an extension of what is being done today, one form of regenerative medicine allows for the use of replacement organs, via synthetics or cloning, to maintain one's body at its peak. However, how this field continues to vary into the future, from our understanding of it today, may well prove to be because of the advent of safe and risk-free replacements to natural organs and appendages, these eventually forcing this field of medicine to shibt from its current reactive approach towards the more proactive.
Replacing even functioning parts of the body may become commonplace as a recourse to limit aging or natural wear and tear. In fact, while it may be considered that immortality, or close to it, or can be viewed as the objective of this branch, there is also a school of thought pushing for the possibility of age reversal which will allow tomorrowYOU to always be at the prime of his or her life, no matter their actual age.
From medibots (medical nanobots) that act as nanometre-sized diagnosticians, healers and even smart bombs targetting cancer or genetic anomalies, all powered by the reaction in blood cells; to artificial immune systems, cryogenic sleep (biostasis), drugs improving intelligence, perception and cognition, and synthetic limbs and organs; biotechnology is all about integrating technology and biology. In many instances biomaterial is even proving to be the building material for new technology such as in the case of nanotechnology.
Meanwhile, the field of cellular reprogramming, which is the most recent attempt at bridging the gap between science fiction and science fact, focuses on charting cells and using an individual's own cells to treat their own unique set of ailments. By reprogramming one's own damaged cells to act as stem cells which can then become any cell needed, today's scientists believe they can overcome a number of barriers which can not be overcome by more traditional treatments such as transplantation, chemotherapy, etc. The reason why this is fascinating is because while many other areas of exploration are mere conjecture at this point, cellular reprogramming has shown significant real world promise to date in actually treating disease in lab settings.
The brain
While researchers are currently exploring the concept of brain machine interfaces to allow victims of strokes or spinal injuries to function at heightened levels and in everyday settings, the real reason this area obten gets highlighted in science fiction is because of its vast, uncharted potential.
One possible obt-speculated application being the possibility of memory downloads and brain backups, where everyone's core personality and memories will be stored in a safe remote location to be accessed in times of emergencies. This also ties into the concept of immortality as when one body gets used up or dies, brain backups allow one entity to be transferred into another body. As you may imagine, such a concept could possibly elicit a number of religious and philosophical repercussions.
However, if the human brain can truly and successfully interface with a machine, the applications of this technology may also have untold implications on the future of humanity, especially when you consider the steady rate of adoption of the Internet and the increasing popularity of virtual life; where anybody can be whatever they want. In fact, science fiction writers and futurists are already suggesting that humanity may eventually leave their physical bodies behind and ultimately evolve into entities both ephemeral and omniscient.
Interestingly, since many aspects of tomorrowMEDICINE are so intricately affected by other future technologies; there are also some very unique side effects to consider. While advances in patient care might be the goal of many medical technologies, side ffects like the field of biomimetics may inadvertently result. This field is when a study of biological matter leads to a technological advancement outside the field. For example, the idea for Velcro coming from observing insects. On the other hand, there are also significant future dangers from the greater integration of technology, such as the possibility of biohacking; which is when malicious parties tap into implants or prosthesis or even synthetic organs and disrupt their functions which could lead to injuries or worse.
In the meantime, no matter what advantages, or even disadvantages, brought on by future technology, the one consistent, unifying thought amongst futurists and theoreticians appears to be that, considering the current inequitable nature of the world, where the majority of the global population faces ongoing and unnecessary starvation and disease; future advances in medicine will continue to be solely directed at the more affluent members of society, unless a shibt towards a fairer sharing of already scarce resources occurs in tandem with the innovations of tomorrowMEDICINE. |
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