By Karen Lighman, Managing Director, MEMS Industry Group and Donna Sandfox, Product Manager, MEMS Sensors, Omron
Originally posted on Electronic Products
Use of MEMS flow meters in a heart replacement system lets stable patients stay comfortably at home, rather than in hospital
MEMS technology is enabling new biomedical applications that improve quality of life (QoL) in a variety of ways. Providing intelligent sensing and actuation — which can be combined with electronics processing “muscle”–like ASICs, microprocessors, and even DSPs — MEMS enables a high degree of interactivity with the environment. MEMS packs this intelligence into a small footprint, making it the ideal companion for resource-constrained applications.
At a recent symposia convened by the MEMS Industry Group, some of the top innovators in biomedicine explored the use of MEMS in life-enhancing and life-saving QoL applications. Dr. Marvin J. Slepian, co-founder, chairman, and chief scientific and medical officer at SynCardia Systems (www.syncardia.com), delivered a presentation on recent advances in SynCardia’s Total Artificial Heart, a temporary, bridge-to-transplant heart replacement. The advance serves as an outstanding example of the state of the art of MEMS applications in medicine.
