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| Report Robotics for Healthcare | 2974 KB |
| Leaflet Robotics for Healthcare | 593 KB |
Healthcare will have to face up to considerable challenges in the years to come. People are living for longer and they want to remain living independent lives. More older people means more chronic illness. The demand for care will just go on rising while the number of people providing that care will continue to diminish. Robotics in healthcare could offer a solution to redressing the balance.
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Smart medical capsules are a good example of a highly promising robotics application in healthcare. An intestinal examination is a very unpleasant, extremely time consuming procedure that also carries with it a certain degree of risk. The first minipills are already being used. They are swallowed and contain a camera. In the medium term it will be possible to steer these pills and use them to undertake biopsies. Intestinal examinations will benefit from being much less unpleasant and the length of hospitalisation will be substantially reduced.
The European Commission has assigned TNO the task of exploring the possible healthcare applications of robotics. Together with eighty experts from around the world, TNO has developed a roadmap that identifies, among other things, the most promising areas of innovation. Six of these are contained in the roadmap:
