140. Bionic Seniors | 仿生老人
– Musings of Dr. Jamie C. Hsu, 7.20.2022
Thanks to modern medical care, nutritious food, and better attention to exercise, we are now living longer lives, and more importantly, better quality lives.
When I look around at my contemporary senior friends, most of us are still enjoying life to the fullest extent. We travel, play golf, swim, garden, and play with grandkids. But when we look deeper to examine our health and bodies, we find that many seniors have some kind of biomedical device or artificial part in their bodies.
The most common and obvious ones are eyeglasses for reading and hearing aids for listening. With the cataract replacement lenses, people begin to marvel at the bright colors in their surroundings. With hearing improvement, seniors can more comfortably rejoin conversations with friends and loved ones, and feel to be a part of the community. Less obvious artificial parts are crowns, bridges, or implants in our mouths. These allow seniors to enjoy their favorite foods and visit restaurants more frequently.
Also less obvious is the fact that many seniors have pacemakers to regulate their heart rate, stents to open their arteries, and artificial valves to improve the efficiency of blood pumping and flowing in their heart. Other seniors may have their deteriorating hip joints or knees replaced with titanium parts. Now they can bend, walk, and do gardening and hiking again.
All of these wonders of modern medicine have improved our bodies to such an extent that we might forget what life would be like without them. In the literature and poetry written by our ancestors, they often lamented that when they reached the “old age of 40” the vision became blurry, the hair turned gray, hearing fainted, and the teeth were shakily loose (視茫茫，髮蒼蒼，而齒牙動搖). With such diminishing capacity, all they could do was become a bystander of the world around them.
As for us, the contemporary “bionic seniors,” life often begins at the age of 60 or after retirement. We owe our golden years in life to the great advances in health care, medical technology, and health care experts.
Let’s enjoy our golden years with our bionic bodies.
仿生老人 (2022/07/20)
-作者 許俊宸博士
-中譯 薛乃綺
受惠現代醫療保健、營養豐富的飲食以及對運動更加關注，現在的人壽命變得更長；更重要的是，生活的品質也更好。
當我看著周邊同期的老朋友們時，大部份的人仍然能盡情地享受生活。我們旅行、打高爾夫球、游泳、種花、和孫子們一起玩樂。當我們更深層地檢視自己的健康和身體狀況時，我們會發現很多老人家的身體裡，或多或少都某個人工裝置或者是零件。
最常見和最明顯的就是用來讀東西的眼睛、以及用來聽東西的耳朵。隨著白內障的更換，人們開始驚嘆周邊鮮豔的色彩。隨著聽力的改善，銀髮族可以更舒適地重新加入朋友或親人的對話，並且感受到自己的社群裡的一員。不太明顯的人工零件像是牙冠、牙橋和植入物。這些讓老人家可以更頻繁地享用他們最喜歡的食物、能更常去光顧餐廳。
不太明顯的像是許多老人家有裝心臟起博器，用來調節心跳；心臟支架用來撐開動脈；還有人工瓣膜來提高心臟中血液泵送和流動的效率。還有些老人家用鈦合金零件代替他們惡化的髖關節或膝蓋。他們現在可以彎腰、走路、園藝和健走旅遊了。
所有現代醫療設備的奇蹟，都已經改善我們的身體，以至於我們甚至忘記沒有它們的生活會是什麼樣子。在我們古人所寫的文學詩詞中，經常感嘆到年過四十而視茫茫，而髮蒼蒼，而齒牙動搖。若體能下滑至如此，也只能作為周邊世界的旁觀者。
至於我們這些當代的仿生老人，生活往往從60歲或退休後開始。我們的黃金歲月歸功於醫療保健、醫學技術和保健專家的巨大貢獻。
讓我們用仿生身體一起享受屬於自己的黃金歲月吧！
