Medical devices: Technology addressing medical wellbeing

A key trend of the 21st Century will be providing effective healthcare to an ageing global population. Everybody wants to live a longer and more fulfilled life, but it does not come without a cost.

Global healthcare systems are being challenged in three distinct but related ways: first, an ageing population means more people need treatment; second, as science develops, so do positive medical outcomes, but not without additional budgetary demands; finally, more people retired leaves relatively fewer people in work to fund medical care. During the next decades, healthcare will need to reshape significantly to address these issues.

The MedTech boom

Central to delivering the healthcare system of the future are a new breed of medical technology companies that offer cost-effective treatments allowing people to live longer and better lives. The medical device industry is predicted to be worth more than $8.5 billion by 2025 – with bioelectronic medicine being one of the fastest-growing areas of healthcare. Bioelectronics uses painless electrical pulses to help manage and cure medical issues and has long been used in medicine: from applications in pacemakers to the treatment of epilepsy and Parkinson’s. Now bioelectronic therapies are addressing a range of other applications – most notably circulatory issues such as venous thromboembolism (VTE).

Addressing VTE risk and blood clots

Every 37 seconds someone in the western world dies from a VTE – otherwise known as a blood clot. VTE’s can cause serious medical issues from deep vein thrombosis (DVT) – where blood clots form, typically in the legs – to pulmonary embolism (PE) – a blood clot on the lung.

One of the key causes of VTE is immobility, so it is perhaps not surprising that up to 60% of all cases occur during or following hospitalisation – when people’s movement is restricted. Some 40,000 deaths in England every year are caused by VTEs in hospitalised patients, yet 62% of these deaths are preventable given proper management.

Traditionally, hospitals address the risk of blood clots in one of two ways: through blood-thinning medicines that prevent clotting or via Intermittent Pneumatic Compression (IPC) devices. IPCs are inflatable sleeves worn on a patient’s leg that push blood out of the legs back to the heart. However, research shows that not all patients can be prescribed IPC or find it intolerable, leaving many patients without a treatment to reduce the risk of a VTE.

Wearable bioelectronic technology is now being used to address this precise issue in several hospitals. A ground-breaking example is an innovative medical device that is applied at the knee in a similar way to a sticking plaster, that sends small and painless electrical pulses down the lower leg every second, pushing blood in the deep veins back to the heart. Its mechanism of calf muscle contraction increases blood circulation to around 60% of what would be achieved walking, without raising a patient’s resting heart rate or blood pressure. While these devices are relevant for all patients, they offer the first solution for those unable to be prescribed drugs or IPC.