Biomedical Engineering & Healthcare

Biomedical engineering is a discipline seeking to reduce the gap between Engineering and Medicine in order to provide solutions to healthcare problems. Along the different specialties areas of Biomedical Engineering, there is a field known as Rehabilitation Engineering that involves the design, development, and implementation of solutions and devices for assisting people with disabilities, promoting inclusion and allowing disabled people to have a more independent life.
Emerging technologies have affected the development of the different disciplines, in a positive way in most of the cases, and Rehabilitation Engineering is not the exemption. An example of these emerging technologies is three- dimensional (3D) printing, an additive manufacturing process able to fabricate three dimensional and solid objects of the desired geometry. 3D printing is considered a convenient technique to manufacture devices capable of assist and/or replace body functions.
Additive manufacturing, such as 3D printing, combined with mechanics and/or electronics, core subjects of a Biomedical Engineering program, permits the creation of more robust and sophisticated rehabilitation devices. Such is the case of different innovative projects that have been developed in the undergraduate program by the students of the Biomedical Engineering program at UDEM: a myoelectric-controlled hand prosthesis was fabricated by 3D printing with the ability to react to muscle signals of the amputated arm; a scanning navigation system was designed, 3D printed, and implemented into a wheelchair for children with cerebral palsy in order to give them autonomy while moving; a wristband was developed and 3D printed to recollect frequency ranges of tremor in patients with Parkinson’s disease in order to better control the dose of dopaminergic medication.
The development of these types of projects at the undergraduate level has been a unique and enriching experience for the students at UDEM. It allows them to understand the actual needs of the society and, more importantly, it engages them to focus their knowledge and work in the improvement of the quality of life of others.