High-Tech Video Medical Tools for Improving Patient Care

Doctors use a variety of instruments to do their jobs. These tools of the trade vary from basic cutting and diagnostic instruments used by many generations of physicians to high-tech tools available only to the most recent patients. Video is one area of technology that has enabled doctors to do their jobs more effectively and with less-invasive procedures. Video also allows patients to receive improved care and rehabilitation through technological advances.

Patient Games

• Some video game technology is helping patients to recover. Motion-sensor activated controls such as the ones first unveiled by Nintendo with its Wii console have become medical tools as well. Game therapy through motion controls is being developed using the Wii video game console that helps people afflicted with Parkinson's disease improve balance capability. One game called "Rail Runner" requires patients to stand up and sit down repeatedly to make a rail car move along the tracks. Other video game therapy ideas are in the works, according to the "Vancouver Sun."

Arthroscopy

• When knees or other joints develop problems, normal movement and everyday activities can be impaired. Surgery to correct these joint problems once required an open procedure and extensive healing time. Over the past generation, the arthroscope has enabled doctors to repair joints with minimally invasive techniques using a tiny video camera hooked to a monitor, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

  The arthroscope can be inserted into a small incision. It is fitted with a fiber optic light that illuminates the surrounding tissue, allowing doctors to work without a major incision. Arthroscopic surgery usually allows otherwise healthy patients to recover and be back to their normal routine within days instead of weeks or months.

Colonoscopy

• Colonoscopy would not be possible without the video device called the colonoscope. Many gastrointestinal disorders can be detected visually, but until a device was developed that could send back video from inside the patient, seeing the evidence was difficult.

  A colonoscope is a small camera mounted to a probe that has a fiber optic light attached to illuminate the inside of the anus, colon and small intestine. Polyps, Crohn's disease and cancer may be detected early with this instrument.