Diagnostic and Monitoring Instruments

Doctors have traditionally relied on a handful of simple, hand-held instruments — the thermometer, stethoscope and sphygmomanometer — to check a patient's basic health quickly and without any invasive procedure. Over the last few decades medical technology has advanced enormously and transformed emergency and life-saving care: modern hospitals are now equipped with sophisticated instruments such as autoanalysers, electrocardiographs, electroencephalographs, ultrasound and CT scanners, NMRI machines, isotope-imaging equipment, and a wide range of other advanced diagnostic and therapeutic devices. Medical care broadly rests on two linked aspects — diagnosis, which means identifying exactly what disease is present, and treatment, the curative steps taken to eliminate the disease-causing agent. Clinical laboratory tests are what let a physician diagnose and treat accurately, and this support is now being extended even further by newer communication technologies such as telemedicine, which is proving especially valuable for rural healthcare that otherwise lacks easy access to specialist doctors.