Headline June 19, 2018/ ''' *EMPATHY -GADGETS- EMPERORS* '''

''' *EMPATHY -GADGETS- EMPERORS* '''

I SAID : ''ARE MY KIDNEYS going to come back?"..........................

The doctor said ': 'How long have you been on dialysis? I said, "A few days only". The doctor then thought for a moment and said, ''Nah,..........I don't think they are going to come back.' "

My patient broke into heaving sobs at the memory of callousness.

''That's what he said to me,'' he cried. ''Just like that.''

COMPUTERS ARE OFTEN considered a barrier to doctor-patient relationship, a depersonalizing force.

Doctors are criticized, for example, for turning their backs on patients in the exam room to type data into the electronic medical record. But in tele-empathy, it is machines that foster understanding and compassion.

The device slipped over my arm like a blood pressure cuff. Eight domino-size electrodes were pressed against skin.

I heard of series of beeps and felt a small electrical pulse, like a pinprick. Then, before I knew it, my arm was quivering like a bowl of gelatin.

The demonstration took place this year, at a hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The device, a new technology called the SymPulse, was feeding a signal into my arm that simulated the tremors of a patient with Parkinson's disease.

My mother had Parkinson's disease. For years, I'd wanted - and struggled to understand what she was going through. That day I finally got my chance.

When the signal from device reached full strength, my hand was flapping uncontrollably, like a flag in the breeze.

I felt both heavy and somehow separate from my body.

I was handed a pen and paper. My attempts at writing came out as chicken scratch, illegible even to me. When the power to the device was finally cut, I felt a relief beyond words.

The SymPulse is at the forefront of an effort called ''tele-empathy''  :

Using technology to improve insight into the patient experience. Movement disorders like Parkinson's are one aspect of this work, but there are others.

Engineers are studying the airflow patterns of patients with emphysema to replicate their shortness of breath in others.

A virtual reality program is being developed to misalign sound from video, a technique called  dephasing, in ways that mimic the experience of disordered thinking in psychiatric illness.

Gadgets are being made to numb the feet to reproduce the sympotms of diabetic nerve disease.

Computers are often considered a barrier to the doctor-patient relationship, a depersonalizing force.

Doctors are criticized, for example, for turning their backs to patients in the exam room to type  data into the  electronic medical record.  But in tele-empathy, it is machines  that foster understanding and compassion.

There is a great need for this in health care today. Lack of empathy in caregivers, doctors, nurses even  loved ones - is one of the widely voiced complaints in the health care field.

[The makers of the SymPulse have spearheaded a study of the device in neurologists offices to see   physician empathy and patients outcomes actually do improve.]

A sad incongruity of caregiving is that patients often have a greater capacity for empathy than those of us going through our lives largely unencumbered by illness.

The Honor and Serving of the  latest  Global Operational Research on Medicine, Practice and Doctors continues. The World Students Society thanks author and researcher Doctor Sandeep Jauhar.

With respectful dedication to the Patients, Doctors, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all ''register'' on !WOW! - the World Students Society  and.......     Twitter -!E-WOW!.- the Ecosystem 2011:

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless