Over the years, the aspect of combining traditional engineering with healthcare has majorly advanced, especially with the emergence of new age technology, medicine and resources. As per Dr. Curtis Cripe, biomedical engineers are now able to operate in an environment that inspires creativity and helps them to create solutions for an expansive range of health concerns.
Dr. Curtis Cripe lists some of the key ways bioengineering has enhanced health care
Biomedical engineers typically have expertise that spans multiple domains, including physiology, biology, healthcare and health informatics. They use their varied skill set and knowledge base to develop solutions to address distinctive health issues, and have a major role to play in changing and evolving how patients are treated.
Here are some of the ways bioengineering has enhanced health care:
- Biomechanics: Biomechanics involves the study of the human body, how it moves, as well how biological processes within the body respond to external pressures. In the healthcare setting, biomedical research is largely focused on the aspect of how and why the musculoskeletal system behaves in the manner it does. Engineers in this domain make use of varied principles to guide their study, including mathematics, physics and classical mechanics. Biomechanical professionals typically work on the research or the development of products, while focusing on sport and athletics. Biomechanics carry out research that can be helpful for physically active individuals. For instance, biomechanical research tends to inform the development of sports-related products, like training devices, footwear and so on.
- Biomechatronics: This domain involves the development of devices and platforms that can respond to, as well as can even be used within the human body. The key objective of biomechatronics is to create devices that may help improve the lives of patients who have some type of illness or disability, wherein specific functions are weakened or entirely lost. Even though a lot of work carried out by labs is in the design stages, examples of technologies that may improve the lives of many living with limited mobility include devices that allow neural control of prosthetics.
- Biomedical electronics: This branch of bioengineering is focused on the development, design and maintenance of devices that are used in diverse healthcare settings. As a discipline, biomedical electronics has played a vital role in improving healthcare systems, and led to the development of several widely used devices like surgical lasers, CT imaging systems, dialysis machines and intensive care unit monitoring systems. Almost all devices designed to test or treat patients in a clinical setting come under the sphere of biomedical electronics.
- Tissue engineering: Even though this is a relatively new practice, tissue engineering does hold a lot of promise in terms of the enhancement of future health care practices. This domain focuses on the development of synthetic or natural human tissue in a laboratory. These tissues can then be used to help patients with a wide range of medical conditions, right from severe burns to failing organs.
On the whole, as Dr. Curtis Cripe underlines, bioengineering has majorly helped enhance healthcare by merging principles of engineering and biology to create innovative solutions that improve diagnostics, treatments, and patient outcomes. The integration of engineering techniques with biological sciences has led to significant advancements in various aspects of healthcare.
