The dialysis machine is a triumph of human intelligence in more ways than one. It was first designed in the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation, and cobbled together from junk by its inventor. Designed to remove waste products from the blood and help regulate its chemistry when the kidneys fail, a surprisingly common problem, dialysis can save lives. But it’s also cumbersome, expensive, and a high-risk procedure. That’s where the wearable artificial kidney comes into play.
The wearable artificial kidney uses the principles of dialysis, but it’s condensed down into something you can strap around your torso. Tests conducted by the University of Washington, Seattle, found that it worked and it let the seven test subjects do normal, everyday tasks while getting their blood cleaned. The system wasn’t perfect, as researchers detected bubbles of gas in a few places that had to be removed, and that can easily be fatal. The kidney is also not too discreet at the moment; patients have an enormous amount of stuff hanging off them in the current design.
Still, the wearable kidney addresses the biggest problem many patients have with dialysis, namely that you’re stuck in one place the whole day tied to heavy machinery. Despite the fact that it’s a fairly bulky object, it’s still a lot more convenient than laying in a hospital bed all day. So while there are some technical problems to work out, this would substantially improve the lives of thousands of people. Although if they could figure out how to encase the dialysis machine in Iron Man armor, that would also be a viable choice. We’re just saying, it’d be a lot less cumbersome if you could go fire some repulsor rays while getting your blood cleaned.
(Via Laughing Squid)
