Techalyzer

According to John Meiss, author of the much circulated “Something Simple” Series for dental practictioners there are three things that dentists need to know when it comes to acquiring new technology to make your dental practice more appealing to your patients.

The first thing that you need to learn is that it is usually the tired generation of a new technology that is the most affordable. If you want to save money wait until the third generation of the product is released as by then not only has the design of the technology been improved (because all of the bugs have been worked out) but also the novelty has worn off so the product is immensely more affordable. It loses what Meiss calls its “cool factor” and does not, as a result cost near as much.

The second thing that you need to know about technology is to never let it control your practice. Your technology should never drive any of your processes including your treatment processes or your communication processes. You need to be in control. This type of technology should only be used to drive the processes that you currently have in place now.

Unfortunately some dentists become obsessed with gadgets and dentistry is a business that is full of all kinds of tempting, yet expensive gizmos. It is a mistake to use technology for technology’s sake. This does not impress anyone including the patients. To be worth it the gizmo or gadget or flashy new piece of technology must serve some kind of efficient or effective purpose or it can throw your entire dental practice off course.

Meiss talks about how he bought a CEREC machine, which is used for making veneers. He became enamored of the gadget but it took a long time for him to admit that the veneers that it made were not as great as the ones made using the simple stacking process that were sent off to the labs. Furthermore they took hours and hours to make whereas just having them made in a lab produced faster, more predictable results. The point is that you must ask yourself if the technology that you want to buy is the best use of that particular piece of equipment and if it is the best use of any money that you may have put away to invest in new equipment for your dental practice.

The third thing that Meiss recommends with regards to technology is to find a gadget guy. A gadget guy is that person who is efficient, productive and tries every gadget on the market so you don’t have to. This is that good friend or colleague of yours who must have one of every new thing on that market. Let him make the mistakes and then show you what works.

It is also important for dentists to get together and exchange their thoughts about what technology is working for them and what is not. This could save everyone a lot of money and help dentists become much more productive and effective healers.

Medical Science has come a long way and the days of the bionic man or woman are actually here. There are all kinds of prosthetic gadgets that doctors are using nowadays to repair broken bodies.

One of the most fascinating is the bionic eye. This is known as the Argus II Bionic Eye. It is currently undergoing trials in fifty to seventy five patients in the United States. The system uses a camera mounted on a pair of glasses that feeds visual information to 60 electrodes implanted in the retina. This set up aptly mimics what the optic nerve can do.

You can also get a bionic ear. This is called a cochlear implant.  They have been around quite a while. They were first developed in 1969 by William House and Jack Urban. Traditionally they were planted in one ear but lately one is being planted in each ear to assist in localizing sounds.

Believe it or not we are also well on our way to developing a bionic brain. An artificial hippocampus ( the part of the brain responsible for storing new memories) is being created by scientists at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. The idea is that the implant will be able to bypass damaged brain tissue by doing an electronic imitation of how it functions.  The bionic brain won’t replace the entire brain but it will help people with brain damage function better.

The bionic arm is also already here. Bionic arms work by detecting movements of the chest muscle that have been connected to the remains of nerves that once went to the lost limb.  They are then attached by a harness and movements are prompted by electronic impulses.

The impulses emitted from the transplanted nerves into the chest muscle are picked up by the harness and processed by a computer which then directs very precise movements of the artificial limb. The impulses emitted from the transplanted nerves into the chest muscle are picked up by the harness and processed by a computer which then directs very precise movements of the artificial limb.

The bionic tongue is well on its way into being part of our reality as well. Scientists at the Luebeck Medical University in Germany have conducted successful tests on pigs to try and create the bionic tongue. This invention is very much like a pacemaker for the heart. The tongue is constructed from throat muscles that are linked to a device that transmits nerve signals.

So far we are still waiting for the bionic nose to be invented. It seems to be a long ways away from being invented. However there are laboratory noses for measuring aromas used for food, beverage, medical and environmental applications. They are also being used in hospitals for smelling for ’superbugs’.

There are all kinds of great wearable gadgets on the market right now. A  good example is the iPod Shoe Kit by Nike.

The iPod Shoe Kit by Nike is fitted with a miniature pedometer and an adapter to fit onto your iPod so that the pedometer data collected is transmitted to your media player. You can see the number of steps taken, distance traveled, calories burned and other information about your workout on your iPod screen during your run or walk.

What do you think about a shirt that is embedded with a device that can help detect Wi-Fi signals. The Wi-Fi Detecting Shirt allows you to check to see if there is a Wi-Fi Signal available or not.  This is thanks to an animated decal, that features a radio tower emanating waves, that lights up when you are in the presence of Wi-Fi Accessibility.  You can actually peel this animated decal off when it is time to wash the shirt.

It is “welcome to the future” when you are looking through the slim eye shades that constitute the Vuzix AV310.  This is a pair of video eyewear that allows you to see movies and other stuff through a virtual widescreen that is fifty two inches by nine inches.

Equally futuristic are MP3 Player Sunglasses. These are sleek looking sunglasses with smoky yellow lenses into which the player is actually embedded.  An earpiece juts out of the hard plastic silver  frame.

You can also get tukes with built in MP3 players nowadays.  These have built in speakers with a jack that can be plugged into any standard MP3 player.

Have you ever thought of warming your hands with your computer. Now you can get gloves that slip over your hands and warm them using power taken from your computer’s USB port.

One of the more amusing but also efficient gadgets that there is lately is the Earlight. The Earlight hooks over your ear and then shines a big beam of light onto the page you are reading.  The key to this working well is to make sure that it is adjusted correctly of your ear.

Timex and Core77 have collaborated to introduce one of the world’s smallest watches. This unique, wearable gadget is disposable timepiece designed to attach to your fingernail. You press it and it lights up in green or pink to tell you the time. The display of the watch includes the time, date and AM/PM indictor which appears in clear format until lit up. This strange watch for your fingernail becomes even trendier at nighttime, as each design lights up in a different color when the tip of the fingernail watch is pressed.