Reminders of the fragility of our bodies are unavoidable.
You just have to hope that your next injury wont be too painful or long-lasting.
My most recent started in 2014, with knee pain.
It felt like a little electric shock to the outside of the knee joint.
At first it was the odd jab, the kind you half-ignore, hoping that it will go away.
But over 18 months it became two hours of pain each time I exercised.
Then an all-day, everyday event that might involve a hundred or more of these stabs.
Theyd often awaken me in the middle of the night.
I stopped exercising, and became depressed.
The pain contributed to my leaving a job.
But the solution was simple.
An MRI scan confirmed my WebMD-style self-diagnosis of a meniscus injury.
After waiting a month for a physio appointment, I had the solution: a rubber band.
Its the simplest of medical technologies.
Two weeks of basic physiotherapy exercises with a resistance band solved a two-year pain problem.
Our bodies may be fragile, but theyre adaptable, too.
Since then, Ive had an interest in technologies that interface with the body in some way.
But wheres the reallyhumanstuff?
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Some of these biohackers and self-identifying cyborgs have great stories.
I come from a family of doctors, you see.
Some might say that makes me the family failure.
(Others would be more polite.)
Nevertheless, hospitals are where Ive found some of the most human ways of augmenting the body.
Thats the ward where very premature babies, and those in severe distress, end up.
My own brother one of the doctors was critically premature.
Like many babies that premature, my brother almost died.
But, as he argued in his talk, this is very un-human.
It frustrates the mother-child skin-to-skin contact thats so important for very young babies, for example.
In order for parents to hold their own babies, these sensor patches have to be removed.
For early-term babies, the skin is very fragile, its hardly even skin, said Rogers.
Applying and removing these adhesive tapes over time can lead to a lifetime of scarring.
These are powered wirelessly so no wires, nor even a battery.
The patches are a result of Rogerss nearly 20 years of research into flexible electronics.
Rogerss work is also behind new sensors for stroke patients in recovery.
Strokes are resulting from bleeds or clots in the brain that cause cell death.
This would give stroke patients the fast-learning ability of an infant.
However, current rehabilitation methods are manual.
The first six months after a stroke are widely cited as the window for most rapid recovery.
But my own motivation and mood were dissolved by a fairly simple, common knee injury.
What hope would I really have after a major medical event?
Together with Rogers, the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, in Chicago, has developed a series of high-tech sensors.
Theyre designed to help with common problems patients have with stroke recovery, such as motivating themselves.
Like a fitness tracker, the system uses a gyroscope and accelerometer combo for motion monitoring.
In a clinical setting, such sensors would be wired in, attached to external.
Although these sensors are new, researchers hope that they can help with this problem.
However, specific problems need specific solutions.
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