Revolution in Healthcare Industry via IoT Devices: Example of Ingestible Sensors

Life is in constant progress from the history of humankind. The invention and development of technology change life more quickly and progress is the fastest ever. After the invention of IoT devices, they interfered most aspects of human life from security, daily affairs to business and healthcare.

These IoT devices, the vehicles or tools that work by connecting internet and act autonomously, are becoming more common in human life. For example, ingestible sensors are an example of the usage of IoT in healthcare.

This new industry, usage of IoT tools in healthcare, has been constantly growing since 2012 because they provide easiness to detect the problems in the areas of the human body that can’t be reached through intervention from outside.

The new industry provides IoT healthcare solutions to the deeper problems in the human body. The only advantage of using IoT in healthcare is not only to cure diseases that can’t be cured otherwise but also to ease the process that is already being done. For example, the colonoscopy process is a lot easier today due to the IoT healthcare sensors that send data to outer devices such as smartphones or computers and detect the problem in the human body. Here is some example to the ingestible sensors that are used in healthcare and their advantages:

Smart Pill Technologies

This technology is the oldest among the usage of ingestible sensors. So, what is a smart pill? Smart pills have various missions but in substance, they are the pills connected to internet or Bluetooth, travel through the body after the swallow and send messages and information to outer devices such as computers and smartphones.

These pills are used to monitor the patient due to their technology on diagnostic imaging. Also, these pills inform the family member or the caregiver, which is very beneficial, especially for older people. These pills inform the family member or caregiver when the patient forgets to take his or her medicines or if he or she overdoses.

This technology can save many lives due to its precaution to the overdose. Overdose is a significant way of death for the old people who takes numerous pills in a day. The size of the pill is not also big to frighten people. These pills have sensors that are in the size of one square millimeter and covered by other ingredients that do not harm the human body. The efficient use of IoT in healthcare leads to growth in the smart healthcare industry.

Pillcam COLON

The Pillcam COLON is one of the IoT healthcare sensors that bring novelty to the colonoscopy. As everyone can agree, colonoscopy is an unwanted action for most patients. It is painful and requires narcosis and takes time. This new sensor produced by an Israeli company, Given Imaging, seems to replace the colonoscopy operations. This technology is approved by United States Food and Drug Administration, so it is safe to use this.

What does Pillcam COLON do?

This product provides IoT healthcare solutions to the problems that may lead to colon cancer. Colon cancer is one of the worst types of cancers because it is hard to detect the threats that may lead to cancer before they already turn into cancer cells. So, the old technology was inefficient to detect colon cancer in the early stages.

Pillcam COLON is activated after swallowed and travels in the body through the colons and send data to the outer devices such as computers and smartphones when it detects a threat. Pillcam can also be used instead of colonoscopy for people who can’t get colonoscopy due to psychological and physiological problems.

Smart Pill Bottle

The smart pill bottle produced and developed by Adhere Tech, reminds people when they forget to take their medicine. The bottle tracks the number of pills to get and the times to use the medicines and reminds the patients automatically in the time.  The bottle lights up, send message to the connected devices and send voice mails to the patient and reminds the time to get the pills. This can be a good solution for people who have dementia and Alzheimer. Thus, IoT technology is growing not only in the area of pills but also in the area of home assistance to patients.

Ingestible Micro-Bio-Electronic Devices (IMBED)

Till now, all the IoT devices that are used in healthcare are, about the detection of the diseases or to send data about the body’s temperature, rate of the virus in the blood and the ill cells in the body. So, these were the informative and precautious devices that help patients by informing doctors and caregivers. But after the introduction of the new technology, the use of ingestible Micro-Bio- Electronic Devices, it is also possible to cure the diseases through IoT devices.

It was introduced in 2018 and got huge attention from the healthcare industry and academic institutions on healthcare.  These ingestible Micro-Bio- Electronic Devices are in use to deal with the disease in the human gut, an area that is hard to detect the viruses and cure them. The ingestible Micro-Bio- Electronic Devices have a “heme-sensitive probiotic biosensor” to cure the over the existence of hemes in the gut. Also, these biosensors detect the gastrointestinal bleeding autonomously.

Revolution in Healthcare

The continuing change in human life is in progress in all aspects of the world from daily life to healthcare, security, etc. We are now walking into a world that no one could possibly guess without twenty-thirty years ago. The IoTs are now used in many aspects of human life. These tiny devices that transfer information or action through internet or Bluetooth, are the initial steps of a revolution in the healthcare industry.

The usage of IoT in healthcare is making a lot of progress in areas such as data transferring from small sells via ingestible sensors, curing gut problems via small IoT healthcare sensors that the traditional healthcare methods can’t reach. These IoT healthcare solutions to diseases seem to make human life even more long-lasting and reduce the mortality rates due to the diseases that can be stopped by IoT devices.