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Bionic Nurses
Midnight Thunder writes "The Japanese have come up with a bionic suit designed to allow nurses to lift patients with out damaging their backs. This is just the sort of thing I need for lifting the monitors at work." And then there was mecha. Pretty cool idea - and maybe it could have helped Scoop.
Actually, of all those, the mobile phone is the only one that's really "here". All the others are either prototypes or inferior versions. I can't point to any sci-fi novel and say "They have better mobile phones than us".
When I saw this article last week the first thing that came to mind was how much a suit allowing women to be stronger than their boyfriends would change the world. It would change daily life as we know it. Of course few women would tolerate the idea of being stronger than their boyfriends.
Old japanese saying...
To sleep with nurse, one must be patient.
(Or was that confucious?)
Oh, man. Maybe we'll see the Mobile Infantry sooner than later.
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
This design couldn't fit the DARPA spec. It sounds like the compressor is not onboard, or if it is, it's AC powered and plugs into a wall. The DARPA unit has to be self-contained, and able to withstand the muddy conditions of the battlefield. The nurse suit works in one of the cleanest environments humans normally habitate, with ready access to external power or even external pressurized air. That being said, I know exactly where the military could use this. Hand these to aircraft carrier redshirts (ordinance men). See just how fast they can mount a 500-lb bomb on an F-14. The Navy should love this one.
--The basis of all love is respect
now they can use them to hold you down with one hand while they give you a shot with the other.
The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
The implications for pornography alone are mind-boggling!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"Vanessa del Rio??? Isn't she about 50 now?"
So? Marilyn Chambers and Ginger Lynn are coming back, so can Vanessa. I mean, really, if Vanessa Del Rio offered to give you a blowjob, would you turn her down?
The power suit Ripley used was in "Aliens", the second movie.
There's a cute usage of them here, for parachute drop cushioning.
The thing was slow and noisy.
The person using the thing did successfully lift someone out of a wheelchair and onto an examination table though.
This seems to quite clearly put to shame all the designs for "powered soldiers" competeing for the recent DARPA specification. I wonder is it has anything to do with mecha permeating japanese culture? The only solace to be had on the US side of the pond is that nanotechnology seems to be permeating our pop culture.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Most of the engineers I knew at university seemed to be more interested in picking up the nurses, rather than vice-versa...
it trails an unwieldy thicket of cables and compressed-air lines
When I read the headline I though it was pretty sweet. I have spent the last 6 summers working at an ice plant and would have enjoyed the assistance of a suit (like in one of the Alien movies, don't recall which one). While I was in production at the ice plant, I would move 40 tons of ice a day, bag by bag. Then as a delivery driver, I delivered 6-10 tons of ice a day. So you can imagine my interest in a "power assist" suit! Guess I have to wait a while longer.
As a side note, I found this to be a wonderful addition to my geeky pursuits. Some people use sports or recreational activities to balance time in front of the screen, but I found that (should you hold a 9-5 type job), a simple and physical job keeps me in shape and is a nice change of pace. Whatever pays the old school bills.
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There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes. -- Dr. Who
Now that we'll have all these bionic suits around, a whole division of Sigourny Weavers will be able to fend off the Aliens when they come to earth.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
oh yeah, like i'm gonna let a nurse in a bionic suit jam a thermometer up my ass... i'll need a second surgery just to pull it out of my duodenum.
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This is a lifting-only device. It doesn't seem to have any capabilities of lifting and walking. In the extended state, when it is helping lift, it seems semi-rigid.
It's essentially a forklift designed in three wedge shapes, stacked in different directions alternately, which get progressively wider thereby forcing the frame upwards and supporting the arms of the nurse doing the lifting. The cool thing, from a tech standpoint, is the logic that determines how much pressure to put into the lifting supports is keyed off of the pressure the nurse exerts attempting to lift the patient. They also seem to have a method of slow and steady increases in the size of the wedges to provide a gentle lift. The whole thing is primarially pneumatic.
Bottom line? This won't replace gurneys, but it will make simple tasks like lifting patients to clean up messes or just routine changing of sheets. That is where most of the injuries to nurses come, in the routine things. During states of emergencies, they have more than enough hands to move a patient from a gurney to a table or vice-versa. But during the routine times a nurse often has to handle a patient by themselves with one helper to swap the sheet as the other nurse holds the patient. This will make those two-nurse teams much more effective and less hazardous to the health of our nurses. Also keep in mind that most hospital beds are mobile, so a nurse lifting a patient off a bed and holding him while another nurse wheels the gurney out of the way and the bed into position under the patient the first nurse is holding isn't out of the question.
Personally I'm much more interested in how they made the frame flexible enough to allow movement, specifically moving the hands under a prone patient with enough flexibility to be gentle, and yet rigid enough to lift patients who weigh more than the nurse. I'll keep my eye out for more references to this technology.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
There are two things involved in lifting heavy objects:
1) The actual lifting method, which is the main cause of back problems;
2) The carrying method.
If anyone's carried a heavy object and walked around with it, you'd understand what I mean.
Don't get me wrong. I think this suit will find uses, but mainly in the moving industry.
In medical jargon, a BW is short for a beached whale...or someone too fat for their own good. Some patients I have seen in the ER are just too goddamn heavy. Considering the proximity of a patient to the nurse, and the unbalanced mass, it's almost impossible to get in the power zone to lift someone properly. No wonder nurses hurt their backs.
/* ---- */
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
I think all the EMTs and Paramedics out in the field could benefit a lot more from this than nurses can. After all, nurses can summon the entire ER if it's necessary to safely move a patient. I can't say I've really known any EMTs who have made it long enough to retire just based on their backs.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
First, congratulations on being at MIT, although in the interest of appealing to a broader audience, I'll assume that when you write "further than us" what you mean is "than the U.S.," (even though this response actually deals with MIT).
From what I have seen, Japanese companies have (generally) focused on industrial scale robots with somewhat traditional methods of movement. They have been much work on large biped and quadriped robots, often with servos or linear hydraulic actuators as their primary methods of motion. The goal of many of these robots, it seems, is to allow humans to apply machine force and precision in industrial settings.
Academic research (both in the US and abroad), on the other hand, is focused (for the most part) more on advanced control control issues for for robots and innovative methods of actuation.
The MIT Leg Lab is one of the best known robotics lab in the U.S., and their work with active feedback, one legged locomotion, and gymnastic robots is still some of the most advanced robotic control system work being done. There is other work being done at MIT exploring polymers that shorten when electrical current is applied to them. Bundles of them could be used to build robotic "muscles" for more animal-like movement, or, in a far-off scenario, bionic replacements for damaged body parts.
There are several reasons it seems like Japanese companies are "ahead." Academic work involves a lot of simulation. Some of the best designed robots only exist in virtual worlds, simply because it's too expensive for academic institutions to construct them, purely for proof-of-concept research. Also, it's unclear that there's a difinitive "goal" for robotics. Industrial robotic design is aimed at factory/workplace automation. The Leg Lab is concerned with understanding legged locomotion in all its forms (both natural and invented). Sony is concerned with making a dog that can push around a little plastic ball. In short, it's tough to say someones "ahead," because everyone's going in different directions.
As an aside, it's dangerous to think of advanced research as an "us vs. them" race. This isn't cold war military work. Many research facilities, MIT included, operate off sponsored research funds from many international sources. Many of the students at U.S. institutions are not from the U.S.. Most importantly, the results of almost all academic research is openly shared. There isn't a nationalistic aspect to this research.
Yes, it seems like the Japanese produce more in the area of industrial, applied robotics than does the U.S., but that's only one aspect to "the robotics area."
I submitted this article last week, but it was rejected. Now it's news?
2001-07-26 15:12:32 Exoskeleton available in two years for $1700 (articles,news) (rejected)
Here's the link I provided last week:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010726/od/suit_d c_1.html
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
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Very cool stuff though which could be useful in a number of professions. Hopefully, when these suits get cheap enough, we'll seem them protect much of the manual labor in industrial contries. Next task, how to help the worldwide working poor.