iPill

Latest technological trends are not only interesting, but also thought provoking. Just like an icing on the cake is learning about the new technological advancements in the field of medicine.

"iPill or Intelligent Pill"
We have heard and read lot of amazing technological innovations in the field of medicine . One such great find is iPill. How does "Intelligent Pill" sound? It sounds like a robot with medicinal power, does it not? Yes indeed , iPill is like a robot.

iPill is consumed like any other pill with food or water. It can be programmed to navigate through the body and deposit medicine at specific spot in the body. It dispatches signals (radio signal) to the doctor as it travels. Thus allowing the doctor to analyze the effect of medicine on the person.

How "big" will such a pill be?

One-third of iPill is medicine and two-thirds of it is made of miniature microprocessor, battery, antenna and other equipments. These are used to track the navigation of pill and capture the signals of body's reaction to the medicine. Inspite of all these, it is as small as a multivitamin tablet!

Why should they design such a sophisticated pill?

It is amazing to know what this small pill can do. One of it being, Localized drug delivery. Dr. Maria van der Shaar, a senior researcher from Netherlands says "Localized drug delivery" has a lot of advantages. She says, Localize drug delivery means smaller doses of drug resulting in fewer side-effects and higher therapeutic value. After reading this article, I thought this sophisticated innovation is worth a try!

Who is working on iPill?

iPill is a product of Philips Research group. This project is listed as, one of their innovative steps to provide better health care solutions. The Chief Medical Officer of Philips, delivered a speech at "State of the Union of Health Care", conference at The National Press Club on February 11th,2009. He mentions how iPill fits in their "meaningful-innovations" in improving quality of health care.

Some more interesting stuffs from Philips
Some of the "real and sophisticated" stuffs by Philips on You tube.

My Views

I being a "techie", am fascinated by the technological innovations we make. But, as a layman, I have certain questions. Can all these be made risk free and affordable? Can a common man consume such a pill? Can all of us accept the fact that, a "robot" can be injected into our body? Can all of us cope with such a sophisticated lifestyle?

Time would be the answer. This project is at its infancy, measures should be taken to root out the questions that would arise in the future, to exploit complete usefulness of the pill.