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Wednesday 5 November 2014

The top 5 health breakthroughs of all time

*collaboration with Carl Robinson has been a part of the medical industry for several years. When he's not working, he likes to sit down and write about the latest medical breakthroughs. You can read his interesting articles mainly on medical and health blog sites.

You could definitely spark a lively debate when trying to list the top five inventions of all time and the task doesn’t get much easier when you narrow the criteria down to health breakthroughs involving science, medicine and technology.

Our life expectancy rates and our overall state of health is improving as new inventions and technologies continue to evolve and shape the way we treat illness and disease. Here are five of the best and probably pioneering medical inventions to ponder and wonder how we ever managed without them.

Laser surgery

There are numerous different applications where the use of surgery has transformed the way we repair our bodies and improve our health and quality of life.

A good example would be laser eye surgery. You only have to look at a site like the Laser Eye Surgery Hub to see the range of treatments and options that are available to repair damaged eyes and improve our vision.

You can have laser surgery for varicose veins or to remove the appendix and laser surgery is regularly used to smooth out skin and remove scar tissue. Technology is still improving and the level of precision that a laser can achieve, means that even more detailed applications are now more than just a feasibility.

Artificial heart

Introduced in 1982, an artificial heart provides a life-saving stopgap to bridge the time that may elapse between whilst a patient is waiting to receive a heart transplant or a donor heart.

It is simply incredible to think that science and technology have been used to keep people alive with an artificial heart and that makes it an important invention worthy of a place in the top five.

Kidney dialysis machine

Another invention that has dramatically transformed many people’s lives is the dialysis machine. The first machine was invented way back in 1943 and is used for patients suffering from renal failure.

A kidney dialysis machine provides a way of processing and removing waste from the blood and the kidneys, when the person’s body is unable to do so on its own. 

Radiation therapy

Radiation is now used to treat a number of different types of cancer and radiation therapy is often used to target a specific area of the body where a cancerous tumour has been identified.

Radiation therapy does have side effects and not every patient reacts in the same way to the treatment, but despite these issues, the ability to destroy cancer cells that are invading your body makes it an important invention that is definitely worth of a place on the list.

X-Rays

Amazing to think that x-rays were first used back in 1895 by a German physicist who was experimenting with electron beams in a gas discharge tube.

When he put his hand in front of the tube and saw a silhouette of his bones, he was basically discovering what could arguably be called the most significant medical invention in human history, especially when you consider how extensively is used more than 100 years later.
Future generations are predicted to live even longer than we do now and when you consider the medical breakthroughs already achieved, you must wonder what amazing inventions might be unveiled in the years to come.

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