AMC for your body

You must have heard about the Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC) of IT

infrastructure, home appliances and other device. But, how about the AMC of

human body?

Interesting? In a world where we are hard pressed for time to pay attention

to our own self, it won't be a bad idea to give maintenance contracts for our

own body to a third party. That's ok, but who has the time to keep a check on

his health and spend time to go for regular check ups? Not many people really.

To bypass the hassles of going for regular check ups and not to ignore the

slightest of health warnings, technology could come to rescue in a very

interesting way.

Well, there ought to have been an arrangement whereby health insurance and

healthcare companies would keep a check on your health somehow automatically,

rather than you going to them after you face a problem. It is possible.

Biological chip is the answer. And by the way they are already there, though in

the R&D phase. These biological chips are the microchips that will be

installed in a person's body to periodically monitor several of health

parameters like blood pressure, blood sugar, pulse rate and so on. The

microchips would also have the potential to capture and



analyze all electrochemical and electromagnetic signals inside the body
including nerve impulses.

Sanjay Majumdar Issue Editor for this month

The microchips will collect all data and send it across to a data center,

where it will be analyzed by experts with the help of software. On processing

and evaluating the data, they will ascertain whether the person is facing any

health threat or not and intimate him accordingly. They may even send the data

across to a specialized processor to recommend any medication and further check

ups. Well, you may not even need to visit the hospital for many tests.

The technology could prove a landmark breakthrough in not only diagnosing

many diseases but also preventing them. The possibility of a heart attack could

well be judged with the help of the biosensor that could easily detect any

change in blood protein levels. An early detection of any health threat this

way, instead of waiting for the symptoms to show or finding it accidentally on a

fortunate accidental visit, could revolutionize the healthcare system

altogether. Coming to a very ideal scenario, the chips might undergo such

integration that we could inject them into new-born babies-a whole new

technological dimension to parenting. In fact, research in this area is already

underway in many universities and research labs. And Specialists of the Central

Administrative Board of Research Institute of Experimental Medicine (Russian

Academy of Medical Sciences) are developing biological microchips that will

allow detecting a very early stage of diabetes. And it will help doctors to

treat diabetic patients in early stages. Research is also on to develop a device

that will inject insulin automatically into the body.

So in near future, you might see a device that will contain insulin,

externally attached to the human body and connected to a biological microchip.

The chip will calculate blood sugar level in the body and when the levels go

down a particular threshold, the device will inject required amount of insulin

into the body. This would be of great help to those who need regular and

frequent intakes of insulin, especially children.

While all this is underway, there are some serious issues to be addressed

before these biochips become as common as an injection. Is there enough

crash-proof technology available to support the system? What if the chip's

Bluetooth connection with your phone fails and it is not able to send its data

across to your phone? How affordable will the technology be? What will happen,

if the firmware inside the chip got corrupted and output wrong data? Will there

be any side effects to your body on implanting the chip? Or will it be possible

to wear the chip like a bracelet?

So before the technology matures, these issues need to be taken care of by

careful and intense testing. We are surely on the verge of a revolution not only

in the healthcare but also in medical technology. Let's hope for the best!