One of the areas where evolution and change occur at an often breathtaking speed is in the field of medicine. This includes understanding the progression of different diseases, improving diagnostic and testing methods and also in the ability to more effectively treat patients with very significant health conditions.
The ability to treat patients using non-traditional options is a growing field. In the past, doctors and pharmaceutical companies focused treatment on the use of medications that interact with the body chemistry to counteract the disease or condition within the body.
The Trends
New research into the ability to trigger the body to heal itself is at the heart of non-traditional treatment options. The use of electroceuticals is leading the way, allowing small implantable or wearable devices to be able to communicate directly with body systems to make the desired changes to have the body heal itself from within.
This doesn’t work for all conditions, but it is showing increasing promise for patients with neuromuscular conditions, seizure control, and management as well as for neurological conditions. Small electronic devices that are about the size of a piece of rice will be implanted into the body on a specific nerve. These will usually be the peripheral nerves which mean extremely minimally invasive procedures will be needed.
The Benefits to Patients
There are several benefits to patients in the use of electroceuticals. First, these small implantable devices will be configured to match the specific needs of the patient and will only target the specific electronic “messages” that will be necessary to address the specific health issue.
This is very different than a medication that may target a specific disease, but also has implications throughout the body. With the use of electroceuticals, there won’t be the potentially deadly side-effects that are all too common with the current medications used to treat many of these neurological conditions.
