• Question: how many lives have you saved with implants

    Asked by 661artc46 to Sonia, Nick, Lizzie, Andrew on 16 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 16 Jun 2015:

      with the exception of pace makers and implantable pace makers. Implants are not life saving but it dramatically improves a person’s quality of life, such as hearing, artificial limbs etc.

      My own involvement in the auditory brainstem implant area is to give back some sense of hearing after the surgeons have removed a potentially life saving tumour, either because of the surgical technique – where the hearing nerve is destroyed by the surgeon. Or if the nerve was destroyed by the tomour.

    • Photo: Elizabeth Kapasa

      Elizabeth Kapasa answered on 17 Jun 2015:

      That’s a tricky question. I don’t know if anyone knows since it would be difficult to quantify. I guess similar to taking medicine, most implants help people to get better before they get worse (and potentially life threatening), or help improve their quality of life. There are a few artificial hearts (about 6 in the world I think) which definately saved their lives! You can read more about them here http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/everyday-innovations/artificial-heart.htm

    • Photo: Andrew Phillips

      Andrew Phillips answered on 19 Jun 2015:

      I don’t think orthopaedic implants save lives, but they do change lives. So I guess there are a lot of people who have a renewed hope after they have an implant, and perhaps that’s similar to saving a life! When you help in developing a design you often don’t know how many people will go on to have that implant, but it could be thousands, or millions.

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