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Body 2.0 — Continuous Monitoring of the Human Body
Singularity Hub has a story about the development of technology that will some day allow for the constant, real-time monitoring of your medical status, and they take a look at current technological advances to that end. Quoting:
"Did you ever stop to think how silly and also how dangerous it is to live our lives with absolutely no monitoring of our body's medical status? Years from now people will look back and find it unbelievable that heart attacks, strokes, hormone imbalances, sugar levels, and hundreds of other bodily vital signs and malfunctions were not being continuously anticipated and monitored by medical implants. ... The huge amounts of data that would be accumulated from hundreds of thousands of continuously monitored people would be nothing short of a revolution for medical research and analysis. This data could be harvested to understand the minute by minute changes in body chemistry that occur in response to medication, stress, infection, and so on. As an example, the daily fluctuations in hormone levels of hundreds of thousands of individuals could be tracked and charted 24/7 to determine a baseline from which abnormalities and patterns could be extracted. The possibilities are enormous."
Did you ever stop to think how silly and also how dangerous it is to live our lives with absolutely no monitoring of our body's medical status?
I think it's silly how people constantly try to eliminate every imaginable element of risk from their lives instead of just getting out there and living it. I find the idea of having my physiology constantly monitored by a computer about as attractive as living in a big plastic bubble. But hey if what you want out of modern medicine is to be protected by layer after layer of prophylactics so you can feel safe, by all means go for it.
As soon as this technology is available I expect my mother will want me to have it on all the time so she can make sure that I'm not sick. I'm guessing I'm not the only person here worried about that possible development.
"This new technology is sponsored and funded by:
Your friendly health and life insurance company, constantly finding new and innovative ways to make sure we never have to pay you a dime since 1666."
I say don't drink and drive, you might spill your drink. Before you get behind the wheel just stop and think.
I'm not sure the constant worry about the fluctuating read-out would help people.
Besides that's one more system to be abused and used as an excuse to exclude you from something.
..for a pretty long time actually. I dont want it because I'm some kind of hypochondriac, I just think it would be cool to be able to monitor my daily rhythms. After a while you'd get an idea of what a baseline reading for any normal day was,.. and knowing that information would make you better informed about how your eating/drinking/drug use/whatever affects your body. Better yet,.. when you go to see the doctor, he can look back through your prior week or two of diagnostics and it might help him figure out whats wrong. Imagine trying to troubleshoot a computer where you had no Log files or any historical data. Possible? yes. Faster and better fixes when you have historical data?.. absolutely. (and it could help you catch something small before it becomes a bigger problem)
>>>Years from now people will look back and find it unbelievable that...malfunctions were not being continuously monitored
I have my doubts. It costs a lot of money to install monitors inside a human being, and most people don't earn enough money to pay the cost (and neither does the government, which also relies on people's earnings). In fact most cars or computer or televisions don't come with monitors for the same reason, so lack of monitoring is actually quite common.
Also people are replaceable. We have 6 billion of them, with new ones constantly being produced to replace the broken ones. After all, no one lives forever. What's the point of spending a million dollars installing electronics in a body if that body is doomed to expire? It's roughly equivalent to spending $10,000 to fix an old PC, when instead you could just get a new one to replace it. As someone who believes in eternity, I don't consider this life so great that I want to try to hang-on forever. The sooner I die the sooner I go to the Elysian Fields, or Paradise, or whatever lies beyond, and thereby make room for children and grandchildren to run the planet.
And finally, what exactly would these monitors tell us? "You have clogged arteries that will soon cause a brain or heart attack, but unfortunately we don't have a cure, so prepare to meet your maker." Gee, that was real helpful.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Actually, our bodies provide lots of feedback. It's just that we are never taught how to listen to those signals. It's usually after the injury occurs that we learn to listen on our own. You would be amazed how well many diabetics can tell their sugar level at any given moment. It doesn't take more than a month of measuring to learn that. I know I may sound heretical on a geek board, but I would consider that skill more vital to many people than calculus.
End anonymous moderation and posting on
> "Did you ever stop to think how silly and also how dangerous
> it is to live our lives with absolutely no monitoring of our
> body's medical status?
One thing you find as you get older and start having more tests, particularly if you have a doctor that likes to keep up with the latest research, is that each test you have for a specific parameter will also return results on 8-10 other parameters - that's just the way med labs are set up. And of those 8-10 parameters neither your doctor nor you intended to test at least one will be out-of-limits for your sex/age/weight/height. A little research in the latest medical data (by your doctor) or you (on the Internet) will quickly reveal that having parameter 7 out-of-limit can lead to immediate doom. Or not - the research is inconclusive.
So what do you do now? As I said every time you have a test you are going to come back with at least 1, and maybe more, new things to be concerned about. Should you start some sort of treatment for that out-of-limit condition? What side effects should you accept for treating something that was causing you no problems? What new conditions will be revealed every year when you are tested for the consequences of taking the treatment for the last revealed problem?
I saw in the WSJ about a year ago that the FDA was getting ready to approve 5 new reactive protein tests. Well, the c-reactive-protein test has been of some benefit in diagnosing early-stage heart disease. Maybe. Or maybe it has just increased sales of Lipitor(tm); no one is sure. What about these 5 new proteins? Should we all be tested for them? Why?
sPh
Once we get the bio-comp system installed, we can start letting it control introduction of the new designer drugs coming out. Then we'll be able to be fully functional supermen, until we burn out and explode. I for one welcome our new Juicer Masters.
Exactly. You really don't need to see your vital signs fluctuating to know that you're having a heart attack.
... when you pry them from my cold, dead body.
my question is this. Do we have a method of effectively storing, quickly retrieving, and analyzing this data for it to be useful. The amount of data would be immense, and if we can't run real time reports on this, than it may become useless...
... where you're not going to die from a lot of causes that were common just ten years ago. The most common cause of death is now complications from implanting several pounds of electronics in your body, and while that's unfortunately enough to keep the mortality rate at just the same level, it's usually less painful.
Disease is more than an individual issue. The idea of continuously updated, massive data bases can also have effects upon people who are not ill. For example a person building up to a heart attack behind the wheel of a truck is something we all need to be protected from. Perhaps we may one day be able to spot people who are about to go off the deep end with mental illness. That also might save more lives than just that of the disturbed person. And it goes without saying that illegal drug use and alcoholism could be knocked out with medical implants as well. Your body might dial 911 without you asking it to make the call.
As an example, the daily fluctuations in CPU utilization of hundreds of thousands of individual machines could be tracked and charted 24/7 to determine a baseline from which abnormalities and patterns could be extracted. The possibilities are enormous.
And, just to make it more fun, the metrics they collect will be the ones the developers needed, not the ones you need to manage the system. Or, worse, the ones that are easiest to measure.
That isn't to say that you won't be able to do some interesting statistical analyses, just that the data you really want will be buried in cubic yards of noise, or not measured at all. And when you ask for them, you'll be told that you should use what you have.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
We start by using computers to monitor our health. These computers eventually become self-aware and take us over. Resistance is futile.
Given that the state is responsible for the cost of your health care, getting the chip won't be voluntary. Needless to say, if the monitors detected something life-threatening, they'd have to be able to send someone to help you; that means they also have to know where you are.
We know where you are, we can read all your bio-signs, and we are mandated to protect our investment in health care. Don't run so fast. Keep it down to one orgasm. Put down that cigarette. That's your last coffee for today. Sound silly? Remember when we were silly to suggest they'd be banning smoking in bars next?
Yah--we really look forward to having our chips installed. Am I the only one who would prefer a long painful death?
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
And because female circumcision is every husband's right!
I have your enormous possibility swinging between my legs.
Want to monitor it?
I actually used to monitor these things myself, and I found it led to a higher level of stress and even drove me to panic attacks. Monitoring anything extensively is obsession, and an obsession can make you neglect other things, such as mental health.
We just discovered that electric meters now come with not only remote reading, but "remote disconnect".
There will be pressure to put that into humans. Anybody who gets out of line could be "remotely disconnected".
Let the assimilation begin!
Like all good idea's this one will become a nightmare for people. If you have ever use long term anti-depression drugs you know what I'm saying. Insurance companies will not insure you, nor can you get Life insurance policy's. This may save your life, but if you can't get a job or insurance, what quality of life are you going to lead. This is great for that top 5%, not only can they live longer, but they can decide if your just too high risk. Just like a neuron net, great idea, but who is in control and how much data are they allowed to have... Then years later, after they sue for the rights to have all data, your life is not just over, but that same monitoring equipment prevents suicide as well. There is no escape from hell.
The continuous progress of research towards increasing human lifespan is of questionable benefit and certainly not grounded in models found in nature.
Death is as important to the survival of the human race -- and, for that matter, for the survival of life on this planet. With further and further research being done to combat the natural decay and death that accompanies human life, we run the risk of selfishly hogging the planet's resources, when it would be beneficial to the species to cede it to a next generation.
It is natural for individuals to wish to live longer lives, but it is unnatural -- and in my opinion counterproductive -- for an individual to wish all individuals live longer lives, or for a species to attempt to increase the lifespan of its members instead of concentrating on procreation, allowing nature to run its course.
I am all for technology that helps in decreasing the pain and suffering associated with death, but continuously monitoring the human body to find conditions that are mostly natural, and that are mostly lifestyle-based, and attempt to fix them with a view to adding a few years of life put a brake on human evolution and show little regard for following nature's model in such things.
I've always thought that it would be "easy" to replace one of your teeth, probably a molar, with the electronics that could monitor numerous vitals.
There is an old saying that is appropriate here. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! Implants have side effects no matter how good they are. Development of non-invasive hand held diagnostic devices is a far better direction to explore. All we need is room temperature super conductors and who doesn't have some of that kicking around!
My dad was in for pacemaker/defibrillator surgery last year, and I noticed there was a screen in the hallway which showed all the stats of the patients in the ward. I joked to my Dad that I should ask what protocol they were using so I could put real-time updates on his facebook page.
may be prescribed.
In Japan, x-ray of the lungs was more common than elsewhere and more tumors were caught. Nonetheless, the real cancer and survival rates were not improved. In hind sight it seems some of these tumors would have disappeared if left untreated. The problem was both not being able to discern the difference and harming some with unnecessary, radical surgical intervention.
In too many cases, life style behaviour known to be dangerous with predictable consequences (either by choice or bland acceptance) persists. For some, change is too hard, for others they see it as a image they would rather not confront. For many, other routes are more attractive, i.e. medical miracles after a lifetime of neglect. The only benefit might be to remind some that the deleterious effects are being seen. Let's use some of the simpler, cheaper options first, e.g. educating the young before opting for the expensive, unproven "fix".
A balance must be struck. The question has to be asked whether the cost of monitoring is excessive. For example, will unnecessary treatments result based upon an incipient symptoms of a disease that would never appear in the lifetime of a monitored individual? In the end, the monitoring may be a better tool if tested on fewer individuals and the data collected to see how effective current, conventional medicine fared.
Remember, supposedly the guiding principle of Medicine is to do no harm, whereas pervasive monitoring could have the opposite effect.
The possibilities are enormous.
Indeed. Maybe in 2050 our descendants will read
People look back and find it unbelievable that just a few short years ago hundreds of bodily vital signs were not continuously anticipated and monitored by medical implants for the majority of the populace. ... The huge amounts of data that are accumulated from millions of continuously monitored people are nothing short of a revolution for the control of the population and the detection of doubt and hostility to the thoughts of our beloved leader.
I am a type 1 diabetic and wear a sensor 24/7 that monitors my blood sugar. I realize that this is a specialized case, but for certain things the technology and need already exists and are being used.
"There are cannabinoids in your bloodstream. The SWAT team has been alerted. Please wait for them to arrive and beat you up."
OR:
"Your blood alcohol level is above the legal limit. A police officer is on the way. Please stop your vehicle immediately and wait to be arrested."
And it would do this even if you were driving on your own private road, or driving a tractor on your own land (hint: DUI rules apply only on public roads, parking lots, etc.).
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
"sir please stop stressing over your stress level"
"sir your stress level is still rising"
"sir, i must stress, that if you stress level doesn't lower, your health might be in danger"
bad title! ;-)
I fail to see how monitoring my body automatically and being informed when my lifestyle leads to risk of serious ill health is "constantly try to eliminate every imaginable element of risk".
I put on a wrist strap, forget about it, and then I get a notice every few months that I need more exercise, or I need to cut out saturated fats. Or, I even get a couple of notices daily to tell me to go eat a banana to maintain a blood sugar level that will keep me feeling good.
That sounds pretty damn good to me. Most adults are killed by cancer or heart disease, and most cancer and heart disease are curable if caught early. It sounds to me like a system only an idiot would turn down.
Seriously, if you live the way you're proposing, you would ride your motorcycle helmet-less back & forth to work every day, dine on bacon cheeseburgers and chili cheese fries, and only ever exercise if it was fun. I'm all for your right to live that way, but I refuse to let your snide commentary on people who choose to put a little work into living happy, long lives stand without refutation.
(Note: this commentary is really directed as much at moderators as at the parent. A +5 Insightful comment naturally gets a more visceral reaction than the same comment at 2.)
So when you urinate in the morning, the toilet might check for excessive proteins to look for kidney damage, or myeloma, or see if there is sugar (diabetes). It might also check the toilet for blood to see if you have a bleed from a colon tumor, or ulcer.
Maybe a little chip to monitor blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides.
Or better yet, heart rate, oxygenation, and BP levels, to monitor your exercise tolerance - to see if you are fit. It would automatically upload it to your house computer. You could also check on your baby - uh oh junior has a fever - 103 - yikes let's go to the doctor.
This would be best if it were for preventative measures
..........FULL STOP.
But an EKG or stress cardiogram would probably show that something was amiss.
..........FULL STOP.
It's infuriating to see the the semi-luddite rantings of the parent post got modded insightful. Makes me wonder why I even read Slashdot anymore.
Clearly the parent poster believes that monitoring devices are for ninnies and the weak. I assume that he follows his logic to it's logical conclusion and
- carefully disables all monitoring and warning devices on all/any vehicles he drives - after all engine check lights are for sissies!
- removes any and all air quality detectors (smoke/carbon monoxide/radon) from his homes (not to mention any security systems)
- if a sysadmin, avoids the use of any and all alterts, alarms, and carefully avoids the instalation of monitoring systems
The fact is that if this was about managing a server farm or a commercial jetliner instead of a person's body there wouldn't be a doubt in anyone's mind that recieving timely accurate information about system health and integrity is a *good* thing.
Ignorance is *not* bliss, and having more information doesn't mean that you necessarily turn into a hypochondriac. It *does* mean you have the knowledge to make responsible, informed choices -- and/or not to.
Pre-emptive monitoring for signs of heart attacks and strokes are no joking matter and detecting these early on mean the difference between mild and serious, life-altering damage or death. But apparently ignorance will be bliss for the parent poster until the "surprise" stroke, adult-onset-diabetes, heart-attack, or too-late cancer diagnosis.
I turned up last year with _symptom_,
which led to _test_,
which showed abnormal levels of _chemical_ in my body.
The doctor prescribed _drug_ to restore _chemical_ to normal levels.
The drug works. The symptoms are much improved.
But...I have *no* *idea* how much _chemical_ I'm getting.
To little and too much are both bad.
My body comes with a finely tuned feedback mechanism for regulating the level of _chemical_, which, unfortunately, appears to be broken. Instead, I take _drug_, which slams the stuff into my body. And I do mean *slam*. I can feel that stuff in me.
The doctors say to take _drug_ for a month,
and then get a lab test done to check the level in my system.
A month???
A lab test???
I want a real time monitor on _chemical_.
The possibilities are enormous.
The possibilities for government or corporate abuse are enormous. Governments would love some way of remotely deactivating people as soon as they step out of line.
I thought the borg started when V'ger merged with Commander Decker.
Either way the analogy is a good one. There is nothing governments would love more than reducing the entire population to drones. Actually most of the population are already there.
Whose going to look at and interpret all of that mostly worthless data? Bottom line is that there is no objective measurement of anything that would allow us to predict disaster any quicker than you yourself starting to feel sick would. Measuring things continuously (as opposed to periodic measurements for screening purposes) in someone who is healthy and doesn't have symptoms is a complete waste of time, unless all you're doing is collecting data on your control group.
And has been around for a long time. All of the physical Yogas and the less martial of the martial art style exercises have as their aim a better union of the mind with the body, which includes a greater sensitivity to what the body is experiencing, so that you can make the changes necessary to avoid oncoming diseases or sickness (change in diet, extra rest, stimulation of a particular system of the body). Just because some raghead or little chinaman knows about this (and its not new knowledge, or even secret knowledge) seems to automatically mean its of no value to western society, and we need to come up with some external solution. If it ain't broke, dont fix it. And don't make it even easier for western society (mostly Americans) to live their lives in a horribly unhealthy physical state and with the assurance that there is a drug available or a medical procedure to solve something that should not have progressed to a problem in the first place.
If you're not going to be willing to take care of yourself, continuous monitoring ain't going to save you.
"Did you ever stop to think how silly and also how dangerous it is to live our lives with absolutely no monitoring of our body's medical status?"
The body monitors its own status continously and constantly takes corrective actions. The process is called homeostasis, a word invented by Walter B. Cannon in the 1930s although the concept is much older.
You might as well say:
"Did you ever stop to think how silly and dangerous it is to live our lives with absolutely nothing monitoring our posture to keep us from falling over?"
"Did you ever stop to think how silly and dangerous it is to walk around with absolutely no electrodes on our chests to keep our hearts beating?"
"Did you ever stop to think how silly and dangerous it is to walk around with absolutely no portable diathermy machine to hold our body temperature at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit?"
This is not to say that canes and electronic pacemakers... and, for all I know, portable diathermy machines... might not be helpful to some people, but the body has a great capacity to take care of itself without medical intervention.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Well its not an implant, but there are little wearable devices that have been made in South Korea which can monitor your vitals, with more in development. Here's a story about them: http://www.koreaittimes.com/story/ubiquitous-jewelry-keep-you-healthy
It can't tell you that chronic high blood sugar levels will cause diabetes.
Chronic high blood sugar IS diabetes.
..and before you all start shouting me down about how it's voluntary: with all the Nanny State bullshit I see going on in the world today, it's not far-fetched at ALL that between Nanny State governments, big insurance companies, and health insurance providers, they'd try to somehow make it mandatory. Screw them, screw that! If I wanted to anally-probed, I'd go live in Roswell and let the effing aliens take me for a ride.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
And how do you propose the medical professional respond to the detected abnormalities ? Any idea how much that would cost? Any idea how many doctor/hours that would require? We (I'm a professor of medicine) barely use the current technology adequately. Such a device might be useful for study populations but it would not be feasible for general use. The cost to monitor those that are usually healthy(most of us) would be exorbitant. What degree of abnormality would require a response? Would such monitoring improve morbidity and mortality? What a stupid idea. We live and then we die - medicine does the best it can in between.
"I see you're trying to compose a child with your wife. Would you like some help?"
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I've assimilated enough C-Span to come to the conclusion that : To ask for permission is to ask for permission to abuse. Give you an example, wire-tapping....at one point it was used only in cases where such monitoring was permitted via a judge's signature...now anything you do that involves your credit card, telephone, computer, cell phone, memberships, bank accounts, internet use, car(s),...etc can and is being monitored on some level by one organization or another. This being the case, I do not want anything monitoring anything inside my body.
Permission given is permission given to abuse. If you doubt it, next time your credit card company or insurance company raises your rates or cuts services for no apparent reason, go back and re-read the fine print of the contract you signed.....
-Oz
What is wrong with you people? Can you seriously not think of the possibilities of ubiquitous medical data collection?
- Feedback drives natural behavioral changes. Watching your blood sugar levels and blood viscosity respond to eating an ice cream cone vs. a Big Mac vs. a banana is going to have an affect on what you decide to put in your mouth.
- Correlations for the finding. Correlation doesn't indicate causality, but it does suggest relationship. If you pull all of this data together with demographic data you can search it for trends and correlations that you used to have to posit and test for.
- Odd is normal. Finding something odd on a medical test will be properly ignored if it's been that way in your body forever. We've never known what to ignore before. Not to mention, with aggregate data for other users you'll even be able to know exactly how odd it is.
The mentality shown in this article scares me more than any heart attack I would ever have. It seems that just because new technology has been invented, we are all stupid if we don`t use it. Not only that but the rethorics used in the article is styled to promote fear and uncertainty about something that is important to us all: the state of our bodies. Constant focus on unimportant things like this and what Obama said about the special olympics helps remove attention from what matters. Enough with the monitoring and surveillance. I`ve had enough invasion of privacy to last me a lifetime. With or without the heart attack.
Those that want it can have it (and have to pay for it), those that don't just don't.
Everybody is happy.
That wasn't too hard, was it?
Take the time to read the short story called Yeyuka by noted Australian science fiction writer Greg Egan. It plays out the consequences on society of people with "enough money" being able to have the health monitored 24/7 by way of a ring they wear on their finger. You can find the story here: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/yeyuka.htm
The technology to do some of this already exists.
There are "Constant Glucose Monitoring Systems" (CGMS) on the market right now. A sensor is inserted just under the skin, attached to a wireless transmitter. These sensors must be replaced every 3 days or so. A separate device receives these signals and displays glucose levels every minute or so, along with a graph showing a slightly longer-term trend. While these readings are not guaranteed to be 100% accurate (they recommend doing a blood sugar check with a standard glucose meter before taking any action), they provide valuable data about what your blood sugar is doing; It can help catch low blood sugar before full blown hypoglycaemia and identify spikes in your blood sugar.
Sadly, these products seem to be relatively rare in the US, and almost unheard of in the UK (apart from short 3 week trials) as the NHS doesn't like funding high-tech treatments until severe complications have set in (~0.4% of diabetics in the UK have an insulin pump, compared to ~15% in the US or Europe)
CHET-NUN
Any phenomena is a product of noumena, the moral conditions of thought.
Therefore, any monitoring or expectation of disease is a hazard.
http://www.primitivepiety.net
> "Did you ever stop to think how silly and dangerous it is to walk around with absolutely no electrodes on our chests to keep our hearts beating?"
I might if I needed a pacemaker...
I'm holding out for Body 3.11 for Workgroups.
They have been producing sleek, usable body monitoring technology for a number of years now. The solutions focus on weight loss and getting fit right now but I am sure the capabilities would expand in the future. All the contestants on the Biggest Loser on NBC wear their private branded device. The latest offering looks like Go Wear fit and includes sleep duration and efficiency too. Check out www.gowearfit.com.
Living a healthy lifestyle doesn't always help. There are some people that drop dead for no apparent reason. Often they are top athletes or apparently physically fit people. You may have an unnoticeable heart condition that could only be detected on an ECG. You may have high cortisol levels due to over stressing or working out too much that is causing you more harm than good. There are many things that could be going on.
I don't really want to be hooked up with a bunch of wires all day long or have implants either. What we need is the Star Trek remote monitoring system where the computer can call out your life-signs without you being hooked up to anything.
maybe if people worried more about how they live than how they're going to die, they wouldn't fear death so much. eat well, exercise, live in moderation, get over yourselves, and do something for others. good for the body, mind, and soul.
How many things have gone wrong inside your body that your body had to deal with to fix itself? My guess is there are hundreds of these things going on in your body every day.
Now we get to monitor, pinpoint, intercept, change, and CHARGE for every one of these events.
All medical tests are attempts to find something to charge you for, regardless if doing nothing is effective or not. Now, with this system, everyone will be taking a lifelong medical test.
Count me out.
Yeah, that will be the day I need a computer to tell me I've got a boner and I'd better be careful because my heart rate is up....lol
If the nurse looks like Seven of Nine, she can assimilate me anytime!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
"Did you ever stop to think how silly and also how dangerous it is to live our lives with absolutely no monitoring of our body's medical status?"
When I started running 7 years ago, I invested in all sorts of gadgets such as a heart rate monitor (HRM). I wore a chest strap that sent a signal to my watch which displayed my heart rate in real-time, as well as log it for further analysis/graphing on a PC post-run.
That was all fine & dandy, and fun, and somewhat of a motivator to keep on running during that early stage, which is a good thing. But once I got serious about it, I simply stopped caring about the gadgets. I got extremely healthy and now know my body well enough to judge how I'm doing w/o electronics.
I think the key is to live healthy. This is hard. Eating potato chips on the couch while watching TV and having a robot monitor your vital signs for imminent organ failure is not. Unfortunately, the majority will fall into the latter category. Natural selection?
Must-not-watch TV!
My daughter was born with several problems: a heart defect (double inlet left ventricle, for those in the know), Pierre Robin syndrome (cleft palate, small mandible), and caudal regression (also known as sacral agenesis: malformed lower half - 15% of normal length femur, dislocated hips, clubbed feet).
She's just over 8 months old, and doing much better than the doctors ever expected. This is due in part to the fact that her heart, lower body, and jaw problems were spotted in the womb, and so they had time to plan for dealing with them. The doctors expected a week, maybe two, for survival.
But this isn't going where you might think it is. You might think, "well, this guy must be all for constant monitoring." But I'm not, so let me explain. When we were finally able to bring our daughter home, after months (over half a year!) of hospital stay, we kept monitoring machines attached to her constantly. She has a home pulseoximeter to monitor heart rate and oxygen saturation (since she has a tracheostomoy and her heart only runs at 85-90% saturation), and we never let her off. When she dipped down to 75%, we'd freak out. When her heart rate went up, we'd freak out. When her heart rate went down in sleep, we'd freak out. Being new parents anyway, what else could we expect? We'd been used to having her monitored constantly at the hospital, so we wanted to do the same at home.
But we realize that the body has fluctuations - even hers. And we also realize that she breathes better without an apnea belt strapped around her at all times. Our little girl still needs to be monitored, but we can check the numbers on occasion, not constantly. To do so will just incite more worry than it's worth.
Did you ever stop to think.... how incredibly neurotically self obsessed you'd have to be to want to ""to live our lives with CONSTANT monitoring of our body's medical status?"
Did you ever stop to think what an incredibly low level of bodily awareness you would have to have to need constant monitoring, and to be unable to feel your body without the aid of a machine?
Go take a walk around the block and your body will tell you what you need to know.
Use it AT THE HOSPITAL! Most all doctors will tell you that whatthe body needs most after a major surgery or incident is plenty of rest. That is one thing you dont get at the hospital. You are woken up every 2-3 hours for tests. If this was monitored constantly, then you could get the 8 hours of sleep you minimally need to start healing instead of waiting to go home. Use outside of a hospital- well that could lead to a national of hypochondriacs (ex. "Doc, I was monitoring my hormone levels and found that when I got up int he morning there is a 2% drop and I read that sudden decreases could be a related to a major illness. Help ME!")
Japan already has mandatory diets for those with BMI>30. When the government gives you taxpayer-supported healthcare, the government also has the right to run your life.
Really? What about the sumo wrestlers?