Male Speaker: Osteoporosis I heard, there is a huge problem, you can loose 20% of you bone mineral density over a course of 30-40 years on earth, astronauts can loose that in 4-6 months.
Dr. Dean Edell: Decades ago, we envisioned a 21st century filled with push button convenience and space aid solutions to daily needs. Well the future is now. Medical Science is using technologies discovered in space back on the ground to severe patients in amazing ways.
Imagine a world where you are weightless, or where image guided robots perform surgery.
Dr. Thomas Jarrett: We can do it through a tiny needle stick.
Dr. Dean Edell: Or having your medicine delivered by R2-D2. No need to imagine. When you can see that work today in hospitals across America. This Robotic pharmacist is on the move, his nick name Mr. Geller. His mission to deliver medication around the University of Maryland's Trauma Center.
Marc Summerfield: As soon as the medication is ready to go we can load Mr. Geller and take off. Not only does the medication get to the minute quicker but the technician then is available to stay in the pharmacy and work on medications for other patients.
Dr. Dean Edell: To help it get around, the robot has a blueprint of the hospital program into its brain.
Female Speaker: It keeps the patients, the nurses happier and the doctors happier.
Dr. Dean Edell: And he rarely needs a break.
Marc Summerfield: It doesn't go to the bathroom.
Dr. Dean Edell: Robots are also helping in the operating room.
Dr. Thomas Jarrett: We avoid the need for an incision altogether.
Dr. Dean Edell: Doctors at Johns Hopkins are combining imaging techniques with Robotic technology to make biopsies less invasive.
Dr. Stephen Solomon: It does this by being able to calculate the exact angle that you need to be at to reach your abnormal target.
Dr. Dean Edell: Doctors are also looking at this precision technology to fight tumors without surgery.
Dr. Thomas Jarrett: We can use the robot to accurately place a prob right in the middle of the tumor and then deliver some energy source to treat the tumor without having to surgically remove it.
Dr. Dean Edell: Space Exploration has launch a galaxy of medical discoveries.
Male Speaker: This is just one of the 26 different experiments.
Dr. Dean Edell: Breakthrough is now being used to help patients recovering from surgery, here on earth.
Charlie Walker: There's no way I could have done that much exercise at this stage without it.
Dr. Dean Edell: Charlie Walker is recovering from his second knee replacement surgery, three months quicker than the first one. The difference maybe this pressure chamber.
Charlie Walker: You think you are an astronaut that's why it was built for.
Dr. Dean Edell: NASA built the chamber to give astronauts artificial gravity in space. On earth the chamber takes away gravity while inside Charlie can get more exercise with less exertion.
This may look like a medieval torture device but it's totally space age. Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic have teamed with NASA to solve health problems of space astronaut and land-lovers alike.
Dr. Peter Cavanagh: Already we know that the level of exercise that is being done by the astronauts on the International Space Station is not enough to prevent bone loss.
Dr. Dean Edell: On long missions astronauts lose bone density 10 times faster then post menopausal women.
Brain Davis: There's a possibility that jumping has multiple benefits musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, neurovestibular.
Dr. Dean Edell: Equipment like may someday be on board the International Space Station. But for millions of Americans living with the threat of bone loss there are benefits closer to home.
Dr. Peter Cavanagh: That give us leads for Osteoporosis prevention on earth.
Dr. Dean Edell: And hope to women like Kathy Brown.
Kathy Brown: It's exciting to see, that there's research, and horizon and even through it's being done for astronauts in space but it somebody benefit me.
Dr. Dean Edell: This team is also testing how space travel can affect the heart and vertigo, spin offs from these experiments can lead to improve treatments for a number of diseases here on earth.
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