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Science Technology

Bionic Nurses 63

Posted by Hemos from the mighty-robots-mighty-vechicles dept.
Midnight Thunder writes "The Japanese have come up with a bionic suit designed to allow nurses to lift patients with out damaging their backs. This is just the sort of thing I need for lifting the monitors at work." And then there was mecha. Pretty cool idea - and maybe it could have helped Scoop.
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Bionic Nurses More

Bionic Nurses

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  • Did Hawking design this? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This reminds me of Stephen Hawking's Exoskeleton [theonion.com].
  • Actually, of all those, the mobile phone is the only one that's really "here". All the others are either prototypes or inferior versions. I can't point to any sci-fi novel and say "They have better mobile phones than us".

  • When I saw this article last week the first thing that came to mind was how much a suit allowing women to be stronger than their boyfriends would change the world. It would change daily life as we know it. Of course few women would tolerate the idea of being stronger than their boyfriends.

  • Re:Being picked up by nurses? (Score:4)

    by DK ( 2203 ) on Monday July 30, 2001 @10:39PM (#2181274)
    Old japanese saying...

    To sleep with nurse, one must be patient.

    (Or was that confucious?)

  • Gimme (Score:1)

    by Tet ( 2721 )
    Mmmmm.... powered armour. Want some. No, I haven't been playing Cyberpunk 2020 too long, honest :-)
  • Oh, man. Maybe we'll see the Mobile Infantry sooner than later.

    --
  • This design couldn't fit the DARPA spec. It sounds like the compressor is not onboard, or if it is, it's AC powered and plugs into a wall. The DARPA unit has to be self-contained, and able to withstand the muddy conditions of the battlefield. The nurse suit works in one of the cleanest environments humans normally habitate, with ready access to external power or even external pressurized air. That being said, I know exactly where the military could use this. Hand these to aircraft carrier redshirts (ordinance men). See just how fast they can mount a 500-lb bomb on an F-14. The Navy should love this one.

  • Yeah, but the flip side is... (Score:3)

    by hardaker ( 32597 ) on Monday July 30, 2001 @10:08PM (#2181278) Homepage
    now they can use them to hold you down with one hand while they give you a shot with the other.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Just imagine the sort of movies people will make with these! Ron Jeremy being screwed a hundred ways by Jenna Jameson and Sylvia Saint, both wearing special bionic strength suits for cyber-sexual insanity! And then in comes Vanessa Del Rio, wearing the biggest, baddest Bionic Nurse suit ever!
  • "Vanessa del Rio??? Isn't she about 50 now?"

    So? Marilyn Chambers and Ginger Lynn are coming back, so can Vanessa. I mean, really, if Vanessa Del Rio offered to give you a blowjob, would you turn her down?
  • The power suit Ripley used was in "Aliens", the second movie.
  • Even though Festo [festo.com] currently seem to think they just invented them, McKibben's bias fibre pneumatic muscles [apolis.com] have been around for decades in artificial limbs and low-cost walking robots [prairienet.org].

    There's a cute usage of them here [vertigo-inc.com], for parachute drop cushioning.

  • I know a friend of mine who works as a self-employed nurse (she works on contract). Recently, she suffered a herniated disk which most likely resulted from her lifting people out of wheelchairs while performing her job duties. That (injuries) coupled with the nursing shortage in the US is why stuff like this power suit will have a demand in US hospitals.
  • Roujin Z!!! soon all of Japan will have automated beds with ederly people going on a rampage!
  • The thing was slow and noisy.
    The person using the thing did successfully lift someone out of a wheelchair and onto an examination table though.


  • Imagine bionic nurses giving you a spongebath!!!

    (and no - I'm not going to mention a beow*lf cluster of those bionic nurses...)

  • Sounds like the title of a really good porno I bought a few months ago.
  • well, yes. Some of the better DVDs have outtakes.
  • Loading missles quikly on the rolling deck of a carrier. Mess that up and you have a broken plane or missle or both and a missle rolling around on deck. considering the huge variety of specialized forklifts currently used, where the design enables finess of one type of missle on one type of hardpoint... ok I won't beat it to death. the military has 9 support people for every man behind a trigger, half of which do nothing but lift and carry. They could possibly get by with 25% less people. since the majority of the military budget is paychecks, can you imagine being able to cut the defence budget 10% or buying 10% more cool (orbital bombers) toys?

  • Darpa != Inovation (Score:3)

    by Perdo ( 151843 ) on Monday July 30, 2001 @10:36PM (#2181291) Homepage Journal
    This seems to quite clearly put to shame all the designs for "powered soldiers" competeing for the recent DARPA specification. I wonder is it has anything to do with mecha permeating japanese culture? The only solace to be had on the US side of the pond is that nanotechnology seems to be permeating our pop culture.

  • Christchurch Polytechnic's "S-N" block had both in opposite wings of the same building. A few of guys I knew doing computing there were in a semi-perpetual state of "Hellooo Nurses!".

    Such a pity so few of them actually had the social skills to talk to members of the opposite sex, let alone ask them out...

  • Being picked up by nurses? (Score:3)

    by Morbid Curiosity ( 156888 ) on Monday July 30, 2001 @10:03PM (#2181293)
    Most of the engineers I knew at university seemed to be more interested in picking up the nurses, rather than vice-versa...
  • Perhaps hospitals need "Lifters" ... there always seem to be unemployed guys hanging about at the Gold's Gyms' and such. I'm sure they like nothing better than:
    1) having jobs where they show off their 'manliness"
    2) work with cute nurses who need their help.
    3) clean work environment
    4) getting paid

  • The catch is.... (Score:3)

    by Beowulfto ( 169354 ) on Monday July 30, 2001 @10:36PM (#2181295)
    the suit is tethered.

    it trails an unwieldy thicket of cables and compressed-air lines

    When I read the headline I though it was pretty sweet. I have spent the last 6 summers working at an ice plant and would have enjoyed the assistance of a suit (like in one of the Alien movies, don't recall which one). While I was in production at the ice plant, I would move 40 tons of ice a day, bag by bag. Then as a delivery driver, I delivered 6-10 tons of ice a day. So you can imagine my interest in a "power assist" suit! Guess I have to wait a while longer.

    As a side note, I found this to be a wonderful addition to my geeky pursuits. Some people use sports or recreational activities to balance time in front of the screen, but I found that (should you hold a 9-5 type job), a simple and physical job keeps me in shape and is a nice change of pace. Whatever pays the old school bills.
    ----

  • I live in Japan. I work in Japan. I teach at a Japanese university. My wife is Japanese. This is not flamebait.

    I would simply remind everyone to take this announcement with a LARGE grain of salt until you actually see it.

  • Now that we'll have all these bionic suits around, a whole division of Sigourny Weavers [imdb.com] will be able to fend off the Aliens [amazon.com] when they come to earth.

  • oh yeah, like i'm gonna let a nurse in a bionic suit jam a thermometer up my ass... i'll need a second surgery just to pull it out of my duodenum.
    ---
  • Those are valid points. It is my expectation that these devices will be self powered, once it comes to actual production models, or have a power plug that a nurse can plug in when she enters the room. I would also assume there was a way to cut off the suit in situations where a boost of strength may be harmful. A simple pushbutton on the end of the support struts would suffice.

    You have a good point about the comfort level and the reassuring presence of a nurse. I'm not sure how intrusive these devices will be, but I'm sure they'll do their utmost to avoid making nurses look like cyborgs.

    Steven
  • This is a lifting-only device. It doesn't seem to have any capabilities of lifting and walking. In the extended state, when it is helping lift, it seems semi-rigid.

    It's essentially a forklift designed in three wedge shapes, stacked in different directions alternately, which get progressively wider thereby forcing the frame upwards and supporting the arms of the nurse doing the lifting. The cool thing, from a tech standpoint, is the logic that determines how much pressure to put into the lifting supports is keyed off of the pressure the nurse exerts attempting to lift the patient. They also seem to have a method of slow and steady increases in the size of the wedges to provide a gentle lift. The whole thing is primarially pneumatic.

    Bottom line? This won't replace gurneys, but it will make simple tasks like lifting patients to clean up messes or just routine changing of sheets. That is where most of the injuries to nurses come, in the routine things. During states of emergencies, they have more than enough hands to move a patient from a gurney to a table or vice-versa. But during the routine times a nurse often has to handle a patient by themselves with one helper to swap the sheet as the other nurse holds the patient. This will make those two-nurse teams much more effective and less hazardous to the health of our nurses. Also keep in mind that most hospital beds are mobile, so a nurse lifting a patient off a bed and holding him while another nurse wheels the gurney out of the way and the bed into position under the patient the first nurse is holding isn't out of the question.

    Personally I'm much more interested in how they made the frame flexible enough to allow movement, specifically moving the hands under a prone patient with enough flexibility to be gentle, and yet rigid enough to lift patients who weigh more than the nurse. I'll keep my eye out for more references to this technology.

    Steven
  • Isn't this just a really really expensive forklift?

    - Ando
    You are the weakest link, goodbye.

  • Supporting the back isn't everything (Score:3)

    by sasha328 ( 203458 ) on Monday July 30, 2001 @10:08PM (#2181303) Homepage
    There are two things involved in lifting heavy objects:
    1) The actual lifting method, which is the main cause of back problems;
    2) The carrying method.
    If anyone's carried a heavy object and walked around with it, you'd understand what I mean.

    Don't get me wrong. I think this suit will find uses, but mainly in the moving industry.
  • Sounds like just what you need after a long operation - a sponge bath from Robocop.
  • ...if you don't keep your service packs up to date for your bionic suit, you could find yourself doing the robot... be careful out there...

  • Need someone for a BW assist. (Score:3)

    by Agent Green ( 231202 ) on Monday July 30, 2001 @11:10PM (#2181306)
    In medical jargon, a BW is short for a beached whale...or someone too fat for their own good. Some patients I have seen in the ER are just too goddamn heavy. Considering the proximity of a patient to the nurse, and the unbalanced mass, it's almost impossible to get in the power zone to lift someone properly. No wonder nurses hurt their backs.

    I think all the EMTs and Paramedics out in the field could benefit a lot more from this than nurses can. After all, nurses can summon the entire ER if it's necessary to safely move a patient. I can't say I've really known any EMTs who have made it long enough to retire just based on their backs.

    /* ---- */
    // Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
  • ...allow nurses to lift patients with out damaging their backs.

    How is a bionic suit going to keep nurses from hurting patients? ;)

  • "Mr. Jones, if you don't start behaving, I'll get The Suit, then insert your catheter."
  • Don't forget about Light Sabers [slashdot.org].
    _________________________________________ _________
  • Oh, this could be bad.... but, on the plus side, when nurses are getting a lot of abuse from patients, they can easily chuck them out of the window...

  • This sounds like something the gov. is going to get involed in to help out their bionic solider research going on; im not sure if anyone else remembers that article or not, i havn't read through all the replys yet...

  • Re:They are alot farther then us (Score:5)

    by spellcheckur ( 253528 ) on Monday July 30, 2001 @11:21PM (#2181312)
    Anyone else think that the Japanese might be a little farther then us in the Robitics area? ...I saw a show about what the best minds at MIT were doing with Robitics right now and it doesn't seem like we are even near what the japanese have.

    First, congratulations on being at MIT, although in the interest of appealing to a broader audience, I'll assume that when you write "further than us" what you mean is "than the U.S.," (even though this response actually deals with MIT).

    From what I have seen, Japanese companies have (generally) focused on industrial scale robots with somewhat traditional methods of movement. They have been much work on large biped and quadriped robots, often with servos or linear hydraulic actuators as their primary methods of motion. The goal of many of these robots, it seems, is to allow humans to apply machine force and precision in industrial settings.

    Academic research (both in the US and abroad), on the other hand, is focused (for the most part) more on advanced control control issues for for robots and innovative methods of actuation.

    The MIT Leg Lab [mit.edu] is one of the best known robotics lab in the U.S., and their work with active feedback, one legged locomotion, and gymnastic robots is still some of the most advanced robotic control system work being done. There is other work being done at MIT exploring polymers that shorten when electrical current is applied to them. Bundles of them [amazon.com] could be used to build robotic "muscles" for more animal-like movement, or, in a far-off scenario, bionic replacements for damaged body parts.

    There are several reasons it seems like Japanese companies are "ahead." Academic work involves a lot of simulation. Some of the best designed robots only exist in virtual worlds, simply because it's too expensive for academic institutions to construct them, purely for proof-of-concept research. Also, it's unclear that there's a difinitive "goal" for robotics. Industrial robotic design is aimed at factory/workplace automation. The Leg Lab is concerned with understanding legged locomotion in all its forms (both natural and invented). Sony is concerned with making a dog that can push around a little plastic ball. In short, it's tough to say someones "ahead," because everyone's going in different directions.

    As an aside, it's dangerous to think of advanced research as an "us vs. them" race. This isn't cold war military work. Many research facilities, MIT included, operate off sponsored research funds from many international sources. Many of the students at U.S. institutions are not from the U.S.. Most importantly, the results of almost all academic research is openly shared. There isn't a nationalistic aspect to this research.

    Yes, it seems like the Japanese produce more in the area of industrial, applied robotics than does the U.S., but that's only one aspect to "the robotics area."

  • The prototype suit weighs 18 kilograms, but Yamamoto believes he will be able to cut the weight in half for a commercial version.

    So why don't they design it to support itself? Have the person stand on platforms attached to the leg braces so that the suit is on the ground, not the wearer? Who cares how heavy it is if the person using it doesn't have to carry it? Do I have to think of everything? Can I post a sentence that isn't a question?

  • "Hmmmm, I'll just lif up poor Mr. Cecil here and flip him over..."

    cruncraaaaack

    "Stop! STOP! You forgot to take off his restraining harness! Oh my god! Oh god OH GOD AHHHHHHH"

  • I hire moving people to move my things. They call me "sir".

  • My wife is a CCRN (Critical Care Nurse) that regularly has to move three hundred plus pound patients. In the ICU there are no nurse's aides to help her. Sometimes she gets some security guards to help. The thing is, she is really tiny. Last year she had a hernia operation and the place where the hernia is still acts up. She really should be avoiding heavy lifting but the job won't let her.

    I'm sure she'd dearly love to have one of these suits!

  • Besides the obvious military uses ala Rifts RPG or Cyberpunk imagine all the other nifty uses. Remember the loader in Aliens? Auto mechanics to grocery shelf-stockers to lumberjacks to construction workers and a hundred others would all make use of this.

    I bet if you sat down to think about it, there are a *LOT* of really off the wall, and downright great uses.

  • I can't picture it...

    I don't see the resemblence between the (usually) girl who wants to become a nurse, and the (usually) boy who thinks: "Where can I find the coolest toys? OK Thats where I will work."

    Isn't that view mainly for engineers...?

    Of course engineer nurses would help on the nurse-shortage,but I know what will happen:
    http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=2001072 7

    K. Hougaard

  • I submitted this article last week, but it was rejected. Now it's news?

    2001-07-26 15:12:32 Exoskeleton available in two years for $1700 (articles,news) (rejected)

    Here's the link I provided last week:

    http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010726/od/suit_d c_1.html

  • But will it be fun? (Score:4)

    by jimbojames ( 320340 ) on Monday July 30, 2001 @10:22PM (#2181320)
    "Hey Nurse it's time for my spongebath" (grin)

    "No....not THAT hard....NO.....ARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!"
    ------------- ---------------------------------

  • They should just make the nurses to squats and other leg and back workouts. Offering a $5k raise for the nurse to workout 3 times a week would be a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a bionic suit. Also, I never liked hospitals, especially when I was a kid. Can you imagine how scared little kids would be if they saw and heard these bionic nurses walking around? I'm a grown-ass-man and it'd probably freak me out!
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  • Now they can finally defend themselves!
  • >Actually, of all those, the mobile phone is the only one that's really "here". I can't point to any sci-fi novel and say "They have better mobile phones than us".

    Yeah, right...
    "Spock! Beam us up! We are trapped in the tunnel, dying from the Xenite Gas down here"
    "Captain? *Phzzzt* I'm losing you? *chchchchch* Bee must what? Captain? Hello? Hello?"
    "Spock, can you hear me? I said 'BEAM US UP!'"
    "Captain, call me back when you are out of the tunnel..."

  • "This seems to quite clearly put to shame all the designs for "powered soldiers" competeing for the recent DARPA specification." ---Above Post

    You are, of course, assuming that the US military is being upfront and open about their developments in this field. Consider for a moment the SR-71, it was built in the 70's and it was until the 80's that it really became public knowledge, the F-117/A, was very similar, though the years were different. For the longest time the public knew about some "stealth" plane called the F-19 (I even owned the computer game) but the concept art was WAY off. And both of these projects has the serious security problem of having to be tested outside. A powered suit could be developed, tested, and produced entirely underground. If the US military has something up and running, they aren't going to create a website to tell us about it.

  • Anyone else think that the Japanese might be a little farther then us in the Robitics area? Anyone see that little guy that one of the car companies made that talked to you and rolled around on the floor? It told you when it needed to be charged. I saw a show about what the best minds at MIT were doing with Robitics right now and it doesn't seem like we are even near what the japanese have. Anyone know more??
  • Awesome. I look forward to Fox's "Nurse Wars". Twenty nurses enter, only one leaves!
  • ...nanotechnology seems to be permeating our pop culture.

    I wouldn't go that far to make a comparison. Sure, there's a number of people who have initially heard of "nanobots" from StarTrek, but nanotech really doesn't have enough mindshare to call it part of pop culture yet. It's just one of those "oh, yeah, how 'bout that" things. I mean... they haven't even made a movie about "it" and "its" huge implications yet. :-)

    (or maybe you're talking geek pop culture, and not drooling masses pop culture?)

  • yeah.. I kinda doubt 'cool' tech is going to be an issue for very many people here. That's why that clause has the words "perhaps" and "might". However, the keeping existing nurses healthy enough to work still applies. Moreover, it could extend careers.

  • Nurse Shortage (Score:5)

    by Derkec ( 463377 ) on Monday July 30, 2001 @10:24PM (#2181329)
    While these may be expensive, they might be well worth the investment for a hospital. At least in the U.S. (I'm not up to speed worldwide) there is an increasingly nasty shortage of nurses. Keeping the ones you have healthy is important and perhaps cool technology like this might make the field more attractive. But really, it's probably time for some sweeping pay scale raises.

    Very cool stuff though which could be useful in a number of professions. Hopefully, when these suits get cheap enough, we'll seem them protect much of the manual labor in industrial contries. Next task, how to help the worldwide working poor.

  • I suspect that a nurse tethered to a wall / generator will be less able to the every day things that potentially cause back injury. Additionally, nurses deal with making their patients comfortable - a nurse coming up to me in a robotic suit trailing cables isn't going to do anything for my peace of mind.

    More importantly, these devices are going to cause problems in critical care situations (think delivering babies, emergency room, patients in cardiac arrest, etc.) a strength boost at that time may be more harmful then helpful. Conversely, if the nurse isn't wearing the thing continuously they may be stuck getting in or out when they are needed doing other things. Remember the nursing shortage causes existing nurses do more with less support, and unlike in software development, mistakes can cause death or permanent disability instead of a logged bug.

    A powered suit doesn't look too helpful in those situations. Better to spend the money on getting more nurses or paying the ones that are already working better.

    K.

  • Half the things you see in scifi movies are here now. Phasers, flying cars, bionic suits, mobile phones, what next? Teleportation?

  • Well...I'm an ex-nurse,back in IT for a year now.2 things spring to mind- 1) Compliance. AFAIK, in the UK (and most of the developed world) nurses are actively discouraged (sometimes by pain of dismissal) from lifting manually. Electronic aids, and info on how to use them, are always made available by hospitals for all nurses to use. The problem is, they very often don't have time to run and fetch an electric hoist, and resort to a quick "whoosh" up the bed, unobserved, of course. The resultant cumulative effect of thousands of "whooshes" is a knackered back. So, a costly robotic exo device would suffer the same fate as every other time-consuming device designed to aid lifting- relegated to holding a door open, drying laundry, etc. Nurses just don't have the time to use them these days. 2) Patient comfort. Most patients react well to being lifted in a hoist- most of them look and sound innocuous- but I think from the description of this device it would be liable to cause considerable discomfort for those being lifted by it- discomfort=non-compliance. Back to square 1. In short, there are already proven solutions to the lifting problem, all negated by hospitals desire to turn over some cash,increase margins and therefore cut staff. Nurses are under a lot of pressure to get the job done, and will often resort to short-term measures with long-term effects. Gary
  • Well...I'm an ex-nurse,back in IT for a year now.2 things spring to mind- 1) Compliance. AFAIK, in the UK (and most of the developed world) nurses are actively discouraged (sometimes by pain of dismissal) from lifting manually. Electronic aids, and info on how to use them, are always made available by hospitals for all nurses to use. The problem is, they very often don't have time to run and fetch an electric hoist, and resort to a quick "whoosh" up the bed, unobserved, of course. The resultant cumulative effect of thousands of "whooshes" is a knackered back. So, a costly robotic exo device would suffer the same fate as every other time-consuming device designed to aid lifting- relegated to holding a door open, drying laundry, etc. Nurses just don't have the time to use them these days. 2) Patient comfort. Most patients react well to being lifted in a hoist- most of them look and sound innocuous- but I think from the description of this device it would be liable to cause considerable discomfort for those being lifted by it- discomfort=non-compliance. Back to square 1. In short, there are already proven solutions to the lifting problem, all negated by hospitals desire to turn over some cash,increase margins and therefore cut staff. Nurses are under a lot of pressure to get the job done, and will often resort to short-term measures with long-term effects. Gary

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