Affordable, Long Lasting, and Accessible
According to Grand View Research, the market for lower-power medical devices is expected to experience a five percent annual compounded growth rate through 2026. Low power medical devices offer a wide range of benefits for medical practitioners and patients alike. There are, of course, some challenges to implementation. However, the success of these types of devices are already starting to show bodes well for a more efficient and accessible future.
Benefits of Low Power Medical Devices
Low power medical devices have the potential to make healthcare more accessible, affordable, efficient, and integrated.
With any medical device, cost can be a major challenge to implementation. Lower power medical devices are smaller and cheaper, which can make healthcare more affordable and accessible for everyone. This is especially true when it comes to providing care in remote areas and places with low access to resources.
Many low power devices operate on long-lasting, rechargeable batteries. This means greater flexibility for deployment in a variety of areas. In areas where infrastructure for healthcare is limited or nonexistent, low-power medical devices can provide remote monitoring of medical conditions, vital signs, and medication administration, as well as providing timely medical intervention, without the need for patients to travel long distances for appointments and treatment.
The potential for integration with medical wearables makes low-power devices an important part of improving accessibility. Wearables aren’t just for step counting anymore. Today’s medical grade wearables can assist with glucose monitoring, the monitoring of cardiovascular health, and more. And wearables are only the start. Smaller, lighter low power devices can also be implantable, and even ingestible. In addition to being easier to integrate into medical wearables, low-power devices will be able to support sensors and deliver treatments in new ways, and in places where larger devices cannot go, for example internally. This could go far toward personalizing healthcare to the needs of individual patients.
Finally, low power means a greater variety of power options, including batteries used for both power and power storage, rechargeable batteries, devices that harvest power from the human body, and more.
Low Power Devices in Current Use
Most people are already familiar with established low-power implantable devices such as the pacemaker and cochlear implant. Implanted spinal cord stimulation units are revolutionizing pain control for patients with long-term debilitating chronic pain. There are a variety of other applications where low power devices are making care cheaper, more convenient, more accessible, and more personalized.
Pressure monitoring is another area where low power implantable and/or ingestible medical devices are transforming care. In addition to continuous blood pressure monitoring, these devices provide real-time information about intracranial pressure, intraocular pressure, intra-abdominal pressure, and bladder pressure, for the monitoring and treatment of conditions such as hypertension, glaucoma, abdominal compartment syndrome, brain tumor, traumatic brain pressure, and neurogenic bladder dysfunction, among others.
Implantable and ingestible devices are also assisting in core body temperature monitoring for infection, glucose monitoring for diabetes, monitoring of cortisol and other biomarkers in mental health applications, GI gas monitoring in inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome, and ECG monitoring for heart failure.
Implanted and ingested low-power devices are also playing an important role in therapeutic treatment, including medication adherence monitoring, monitoring the effects of chemotherapy drugs and anticoagulants, and providing deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s patients, and assisting in subcutaneous drug delivery.
The breadth and variety of applications for low-power devices are only poised to expand.
Challenges to Implementation
There are, of course, challenges to the introduction and deployment of low power medical devices. A few of the more important ones include accuracy, reliability and durability, regulatory compliance, and the limited lifetime of the power source of any given device.
Whether used for diagnosis, monitoring, or therapeutic treatment, accuracy and precision are key. The readings that devices produce must be precise and consistent in order to be of use in diagnosis or treatment. The accuracy of data generated by consumer grade health tracking wearables can vary. That’s not good enough for medical grade devices. Signal-to-noise ratio in wearables is one challenge; the more noise, the more potential for errors. The degradation in signal-to-noise ratio is closely tied to power management, which is another challenge in and of itself.
Alongside accuracy, reliability and durability will be a challenge for low power devices. Despite their smaller size, these increasingly complex instruments will need to be able to withstand harsh conditions and everyday wear and tear, depending upon their use.
Compliance with regulatory requirements will prove to be another challenge. Unlike consumer wearables, medical devices are subject to strict regulations regarding efficacy and safety. Before low power medical devices can be made available for clinical use, they will have to meet these stringent requirements.
Battery life will always be a question for implanted, battery powered devices. As devices become more complex, they will require more power to operate. And the size of the battery can only be reduced so far without sacrificing the battery’s power. For patients with implanted devices, for example, pacemakers, this can be a very serious issue. Currently, pacemakers must be replaced every five to ten years due to battery life. More than half of pacemaker patients will require invasive surgical replacement in their lifetime, with all of the risks that the surgery entails, and it’s estimated that some 16 percent will require multiple replacements.
Researchers at Dartmouth College have created devices that harness the kinetic energy of the heart, converting it into electricity to continually charge the batteries. At present, researchers say that the technology can be miniaturized and integrated into existing pacemakers. One day, it’s hoped that this technology will be used as the main power source for pacemakers and implanted defibrillators. However, this technology is still some years away from commercial availability.
Toward a More Accessible, Affordable Future
Despite some significant challenges to implementation, the future of low power medical device development is bright. Smaller, cheaper, more agile, less invasive, and more efficient, these devices have the potential to increase the accessibility of treatment, lower cost, and improve medical outcomes overall.