Science-fiction meets health tech

Cutting-edge health tech could advantage sportspeople and public health alike. According to Victoria University associate professor Dr Ian Yeoman, the 2051 World Cup could include players with bionic implants and shirts with embedded nanotechnology to monitor player health and injuries.

And – for a premium price – some of that health technology could be available to the public in just 10 years.

These future predictions are part of Dr Yeoman’s book, 2050: Tomorrow’s Tourism, due to be published in the United Kingdom early next year.

He said convergence was a major trend in current medical research, “convergence of different elements – biology and technology.”

While he couldn’t estimate the exact cost of the technology – especially because some of it was still being developed in the laboratory – the price of innovations was likely to stay high for some time.  “The cost of discovery is extremely high.”

Some advances are already evident, however. Implants are becoming more common for organs, bones and limbs and are increasingly accepted in the field of professional sport. South African double amputee Oscar Pistorius – described by the BBC and UK newspaper The Telegraph as “the fastest man on no legs” – qualified to compete in the 2012 London Olympics using carbon fibre prosthetic running blades.

Dr Yeoman said they were also developing the means to create highly advanced nanobots.

“You can have very very small biological robots that are extremely small which are basically like drugs attached with chips. They go into the bloodstream and they can repair things. That technology is actually happening now.”

One advance already well on the way to becoming a commercial reality - perhaps within 10 years - is the development of fabric that can destroy airborne germs and pollutants according to Dr Yeoman. The Massachusetts company Agion has already developed fabric containing anti-microbial odor-reducing technology.

Embedding technology into material could also be used to monitor the fitness status of on-field athletes, and best determine when players should be rotated. He said this could also have off-field application, in those patients requiring ongoing monitoring of their health.

The use of magnetic therapy chambers to increase athlete injury recovery times is also something Dr Yeoman said could have wider application – although he said the recovery time advantage which it gave athletes would not be as dramatic in older patients.

“You’ve also got to remember that athletes are usually younger and also they recover naturally faster anyway.” However, it would still be faster than the recovery time in older patients, which slows due to aging.