Emirati student designs nursing robots
- 01 Nov 2020
Eman Sorour, Staff Reporter
It goes without saying that Emiratis are a wellspring of creativity and innovation. The pandemic has simply managed to stoke their innovative ideas. Just sample these wonders:
Ateeq Alsuwaidi, a young Emirati photographer and astrophotographer from Abu Dhabi, has developed a robot that can be used in the sterilisation drive to stem the spread of coronavirus in the country.
UAE national Mohammed Saeed Sultan Al Kaabi, a volunteer with the Emirates Red Crescent, devised a solar-powered sterilisation corridor which can be used at the gates of mosques or homes to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Emirati inventor Ahmad Abdullah Majan has designed a smart sport helmet and smart elderly crutch among other creations.
Another genius is youngster Adeeb Al Blooshi, who has built on various inventions including a prosthetic limb for his father and a housework robot for his mother.
Talking of robots, a biomedical engineering student at Khalifa University, Hamad Issa Al Marzouqi, has succeeded in innovating nursing robots, which perform multiple nursing tasks.
Among them is a robot that monitors vital signs in the human body. This is the first step in developing an automated nursing system and a key to creating an artificial intelligence system for the health field in the country.
The idea behind the robot is to speed up preparatory checks on a patient before being checked by a doctor, and relieve pressure on the nursing staff so that the robot performs an important part of procedures at medical centres.
Al Marzouki explained that the robot monitors the clinical signs that a doctor or a paramedic needs to know before the physical examination. Those signs show basic functions of the body, including temperature, pulse, respiration and blood pressure. It measures all these in the patient accurately and transfers them directly to the specialist doctor to facilitate the process of diagnosing the patient’s condition, he added.
The second task of the robot is to give medical advice while the patient is waiting, should it detect an unhealthy vital sign such as excess weight, high blood sugar and other symptoms.
He added that among his innovations in the health field is the "Medical Bag" for permanent health care. This bag facilitates the patient's access to the doctor in the fastest and easiest way. It provides devices to measure the vital signs that the doctor needs at any time. Furthermore, the bag is equipped with a medicine kit and a device that reminds the patient to take the medicine at the prescribed timing and to communicate with the doctor directly at any time, so that he can provide medical care to any patient at any time, Al Marzouqi added.
