Intelligent Implants and their Future Perspectives
Dr. Richard Satava, University of Washington Medical Center, Dept of Surgery Box 356410, 1959 NE Pacific St, Seattle, WA 98195

Replacement parts and prostheses are moving from the realm of inert materials to complex devices and systems that are active and "intelligent".

For vision we are going from simple glaseses to retinal implantsn and limbs contain many sensors and actuators that are controled with feed-back loops that provide near natural gait instead of hearing aids there are preliminary results with restoration of hearing by regeneration hair cells.

And artificial organs are being grown.

Session 14: Medical Applications - A Joint Session with the Society for Medical Innovation and Technology

The Preliminary Program for The International Conference on Shape Memory and Superelastic Technologies (May 7-11, 2006)