For this week’s discussion, I watched the TED Talk with Daniel Kraft. I enjoyed Kraft’s take, and agree that in the US there is a huge emphasis on “sickcare” but little to no emphasis on healthcare. Health care providers “fix” people who are sick, but don’t really follow up with people with no underlying conditions. Kraft describes that we are simply reacting to illness, and that doesn’t equal the best care for patients.
Unfortunately, in our system it is profitable when people are sick. When people get sick, they must buy expensive treatments to get better. I definitely think that there is less of an emphasis on preventative medicine because there is little economic incentive to provide this kind of healthcare. It is sad that we wait for people to get sick before we provide care, and even then that care often comes at a hefty cost.
Kraft argues that we should be utilizing technology to aid in healthcare, intervening before people become sick. He discusses a device that can be implanted to combat PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury. I think if devices like this can help people with illnesses like these, which are often only treatable through therapy, then they can be really useful in our society. He says these devices can “make you smarter”, which I’m unsure of. However, he also mentions that they can be useful in treating/preventing Alzheimer’s. If a device like this could combat the progression of Alzheimer’s/dementia, this could be life changing.
My one critique is that this TED talk is from 2014, nearly 8 years ago. These technologies are nowhere to be seen today, and I wonder if that means they are not feasible.
Kate, you raise an interesting point at the end of your discussion and I am curious as well if these technologies are merely not feasible, or if they are being designed in the most efficient way? The healthcare system in our country is one that is extremely unbalanced and I believe that all people should have equal access to healthcare treatment.
I also watched this TED talk. Dr. Kraft’s eagerness to incorporate big data into the medical field is inevitable, but also poses some serious risks. Before people are comfortable implanting chips in their elderly parents heads they’re going to need to be seriously convinced of the technology’s efficacy. I am very fortunate to still have all four of my grandparents, but they all struggle with some form of dementia and two have Parkinson’s disease. There is nothing that I, or my parents, wouldn’t give to spend more time with them, but it’s going to take a long time for the technology to get there and for society to become comfortable with it. It’s hard to imagine that’s going to happen any time soon, or in our lifetimes at all.