A Parkinson’s patient can now walk 6km (3.7 miles) thanks to an implant targeting the spinal cord. The Guardian reports that the man — 62-year-old “Marc” from Bordeaux, France — developed severe mobility impairments from the degenerative disease. “I practically could not walk anymore without falling frequently, several times a day,” he said in a press release announcing the breakthrough. “In some situations, such as entering a lift, I’d trample on the spot, as though I was frozen there, you might say.” Wearing the spinal implant allows him to walk “almost normally” as the research team eyes a full clinical trial.
Stuff like this should be great, but all I can think about is how capitalism will ruin it. Will they only make it an “service” available via subscription, and shut off your ability to walk if you don’t pay? Will it require expensive software updates, or only work if you’ve got wi-fi or a cellular connection? What happens to the patients if the company which owns this patented technology goes out of business?
Managing a chronic problem is much more profitable than curing it completely.
Think smaller - it will be determined ‘not medically necessary’ by insurance, and cost $100k out of pocket.
The company I work for makes similar devices. We make spinal chord stimulators https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinal_cord_stimulator and deep brain stimulators https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_brain_stimulation
The change in people is amazing. That said your estimate is not far off for cost of just the implantable generators, plus the leads. Add on cost of surgery and doctors bills and hospital stays and your probably under estimating.
Not to mention typically it’s the last choice for pain treatment, so it’s a the end of typically years of pain. Also it only lasts for about a dacade due to the battery so you will need to repeat the surgery and buy a new device periodically.
Why not make the battery port to be located outside of the body? So that you’ll only replace the battery without changing the whole thing
It’s a pacemaker battery. They use induction charging. A cable runs down the neck to connect to it. The charger just kind of magnets on there. The charger is also where you connect to the onboard software and choose what settings you want. Dad’s had a specialized device for that. I can imagine a smartphone connection eventually, but with the security concerns I imagine that’s not likely to happen soon.
You are almost completely correct. It does have wireless charging but like your cell phone eventually the life of a rechargeable battery wears and needs to be replaced.
That you are wrong about the last part. Our latest two generations actually use ipads for the doctors and iphones for the patient. I don’t know too much about the security on them as that’s my area of knowledge. That said unlike a pacemaker our devices don’t keep people alive. They lessen movement disorders and reduce pain but people won’t die if they get turned off.
God damn a bunch of sad sacks in this thread
A large part of the American healthcare system is made of for-profit businesses. Capitalism and genuinely empathetic healthcare are mutually exclusive, and the parts that actually work for patients have only managed to do so because of a shit-ton of regulation. Regulation that corporations are constantly fighting and struggling to weaken. They buy politicians to help.
Pharmaceutical companies will claim that drug prices are high because R&D is so expensive, but that didn’t stop them from fighting for the right to advertise prescription drugs on TV. Last I read, only the U.S. and New Zealand allow that. Producing and airing those ads can cost millions. R&D is expensive, but apparently not so expensive that they can’t afford that. Capitalism does not have a conscience.
I’m a sad sack because I’ve seen (and am currently seeing) friends and family members get screwed by a system that allegedly exists to help them, but really just profits off their pain. I know I’ll probably end up being exploited, too.
Ok, but it’s really nice that there’s a new treatment giving a dude a way better quality of life and give hope to others.
We don’t have to immediately turn everything into sadness. Sometimes stuff can be good, without a bunch of people trying to figure out why it sucks because everything sucks and woe is the world.
You know what? You’re right.
Romania also allows ads for medicine.
Some of us have had to deal with the American healthcare system :).
Bingo. Parkinson’s and ms treatments already aren’t cheap.
My dad has hearing aid device and every time the battery runs out, he has to replace the battery then go to the brand shop and pay $30 to reprogram it.
He threw it away after first battery replacement.
They aren’t perfect, but this is why we have an FDA
I can only speak to our experience, but the MD who put his deep brain stimulator handled his software (and hardware) updates. They were free. Dad was part of their trial (which explains the free part), but I can’t imagine the folk in the clinic what did his implant locking their patients into worse software just because they can’t afford their annual checkup.
This kind of technology should be standardized so that if one company folds, you can use other companies to repair your existing one. Or it could have a state counterpart so that the technology will be available as long as the country’s government exists.