NewZNew (Patiala) : “It was getting harder to separate our technologies in the cath lab from the technologies that we were using outside the cath lab. The overlap of these two has been becoming more apparent.”
This was stated by Dr Rajneesh Kapoor, Director -Interventional Cardiology at Medanta Hospital, Gurgaon while addressing a press conference in a hotel at Patiala today on the role of latest technologies in heart ailments treatment in near future. .
Interestingly Dr. Kapoor Kapoor who hails from Patiala, has recently performed a rare successful insertion of valve in a heart patient without open heart surgery. The procedure, famously known as TAVI, was considered to be groundbreaking heart procedure and has been performed in just 15 patients across India.
Meanwhile highlighting the newer aspects of Interventional Cardiology with technology in coming time, Dr Kapoor said that social network allowed for wide dispersal of information both to physicians and patients. The new technologies such as IBM’s Watson might actually help us think better. The computer systems, filled with huge banks of knowledge would allow for vast integration of diagnoses and help with diagnostic algorithms.
“There was a huge explosion of new devices that would allow for creation of augmented reality, using both real and computer-generated imagery, which , at least in a cath lab setting would allow for the presentation of virtually created imagery in your field of view.”
Talking about the virtual reality in the cath lab, he said that in 2-yr, we might wear a pair of smart glasses that would allow us to see point-of-view streaming images, keeping angiograms in our field of view, in addition to supplemental integrated images. For instance, we could have your own personal “screen” on which data could be projected to help guide interventions, valve placement and so on.
The biggest shift might be in point of care or consumer care, which would be administered- both diagnostics as well as therapeutics-in new venues that were not traditionally thought of as health care sites. There would be an “uberization of medicine,” which would be brought to the patients, rather than have the patients to go for it, he maintained.
Meanwhile talking about his recent study on risk factors in heart attacks, Dr. Kapoor said that inadequate sleep time seemed to be a big common factor in younger patients with heart attack.
The study is based case profiles of 104 young patients below 40-yr who were presented to emergency at Medanta with acute heart attack in last 2.5 years. The youngest was 19 years old and among them 64 were smokers and 19 were diabetics. The time of sleep per 24 hours was noted from patient and patient’s family.
The study found that 68 patients had average sleep time per 24 hours less than 6 hours and total of 92 patients had average sleep time of 7 hours or less. Only few patients had sleep time of more than 7 hours.