A robot is a machine designed to execute one or more tasks automatically with speed and precision. The first representation of robots in films was in 1927. What was unimaginable at this time and just a science-fiction idea is already a reality today: Robots that are clean and tidy up in private houses are in the leading high-tech land Japan today. Also, a very realistic robot-news-anchor, who is waiting for his effort, exists in this land.[1]
As well integrations of robots are also in our country. Have you ever seen a lawn mower robot? Or do you even have one yourself? My neighbour has one, so I see it every time I leave my house, driving up and down the garden, without any human to navigate or program it. Robots are already a part of our lives. They have changed our life in many ways: at home, at work, in our free time, or even in the hospital.
Robots are becoming a part of our daily routines. Many households already have a cloud-based voice service platform that controls an entire smart device ecosystem. We all heard about Amazon’s newest robot: Alexa. The more machines with artificial intelligence become present, the more important are getting questions about the problems that occur with robots, like privacy protection or the general handling with that huge package of data.
My following paper is divided into two main parts. First, I will explain what a robot is and what counts as that. In the second and final part I will examine some robots in the medical field and what advantages they could bring for us.
In order to understand what a robot is and what they do, it is necessary to define a robot. The Robotic Industries Association (RIA) defines robot as follows: “A robot is a reprogrammable, multifunctional manipulator designed to move material, parts, tools or specialized devices through variable programmed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks.”[2] In other words: A robot, or short ‘bot’, must be programmable and multifunctional. He should be able to move various things and be used for different tasks. Usually robots are used to relieve mechanical work that is frequently recurring from humans. Recently, the current definition of a robot has come to be understood as any piece of equipment that has three or more degrees of movement or freedom.
The rise of automation and the replacement of the working class by machinery is not something that is necessarily “new”. But while many focuses on the effect’s automation has on factory workers and unskilled laborers, it was generally thought that people with high-skill careers, such as doctors, would be safe from the coming rise of the machines. Turns out, that may not be the case.
Robots in healthcare have two main functions. Those which assist an individual, such as a robot designed to support disabled and elderly people in their daily life activities. And on the second hand those which aid in the overall systems such as pharmacies and hospitals, like robots that dispense the right medications for their patients.[3]
Robotics experts have set their sights on the medical field. Many believe that an autonomous robot could soon be a regular member of any hospital’s medical staff, performing jobs from taking a patient’s pulse and scanning vital signs, to reading case notes or even performing surgery! And even if developments are far in future, doctor-controlled robots already have a massive presence in the medical field.
One of them is the “Da Vinci Surgical System” developed by Intuitive Surgical. Nowadays it’s already standard for Robot Assisted surgery. With this surgery System will be minimally invasive Operations performed, which means it requires only a small cut; involving minimal damage of body tissue.[8] The first version was invented 20 years ago. Today there are all in all about 5000 developed units worldwide and over 5 million interventions have already been done.[4][5]
One disadvantage of this system are really high costs. A current version of a Da Vinci surgery system can cost up to 2 million dollars. In addition, there are always costs, like maintenance and operating costs. Another con is that the surgery duration is longer than in an open procedure. [6]
So why should we do operations with this system, when it’s so expensive? Because there are a few pros for the patient. He only gets light cuts, loses less blood and his wounds will heal faster. Also, the doctor will have a more relaxed posture. That’s actually really good, isn’t it? Perhaps it will cost less in the future to be operated with such a device.[4][6]
But let’s move to a robot, which is very important in current times of the Covid-19 pandemic. The unfortunate truth is that hospitals are extremely dirty places. You may go there for treatment only to leave with an entirely new sickness. This is why this machine is so important: The disinfectant bot. He moves autonomously to empty rooms and bombards them with strong UV rays for several minutes until no microorganism is left alive. Who knows, if such machines were standard in hospitals, the corona pandemic might not have hit us so hard and we could have controlled it faster.[7]
On the whole is the most important property of healthcare robots that in general patients get better treatment. Including better diagnostic, less invasive surgery, shorter waiting times, reduced infection rates and increased long term survival rates. And that last point comes with a risk: Ageing of the population and in case of that overpopulation. Furthermore, there are high costs of producing and developing robots in healthcare. But I think special or maybe perfect treatment in difficult medical tasks is worth it.
2020-7-29-1596021760