Novel technology in clothing, tattoos can monitor patient health

Microfiber- and nanofiber-based devices — from watches, to clothing, to tattoos — could be used to monitor patients’ health in real time, according to research published in Applied Physics Reviews.

Researchers predict these devices could become available within the next decade.

Seeram Ramakrishna, PhD, director of the Centre for Nanofibers and Nanotechnology in the department of mechanical engineering at the National University of Singapore, told Healio Primary Care that the “current situation of worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has shown the utter need of the remote health monitoring, as there is increased skepticism about going in person to the hospital premises.”

Ramakrishna and colleagues conducted a review of microfibers and nanofibers that detect vital signs, including body motion, temperature, heartbeat, blood glucose and respiration rate, and how this technology can be used to monitor fitness and help diagnose medical conditions.

Using microfiber- and nanofiber-based technology in medicine

The researchers noted that vital signs and body movement can be detected by highly sensitive devices worn directly on different parts of the body or by placing them in items like clothing, watches, belts, masks and gloves.

Rituparna Ghosh

Rituparna Ghosh, PhD, a research fellow and lead author of the study, told Healio Primary Care that the microfibers and nanofibers “have variable stiffness, porosity and tunable conductivity, which helps in fabricating wearable sensors for detecting various physiological signals.”

“These entail use of technologies such as light weightiness, breathability, high flexibility and sensitivity in precise health monitoring, diagnosis and rehabilitation,” she added.

Other properties of these fibers, including high surface-to-volume ratio and their fibrous nature, have been utilized in more invasive biomedical applications like regenerative medicine, tissue engineering and drug delivery, according to Ghosh.

“Also, the customizable properties of these fiber-based technologies aid additional advantages for developing and releasing personalized anti-infective drugs with desirable spatiotemporal profile,” she said. “The anti-bacterial and antiviral properties along with their biocompatibility are necessary and much appreciated factors in developing medical implants for stem cell regeneration.”

Improving health care monitoring

Ramakrishna said that currently, “major health care services have centralized structures, where patients have to travel a long way to meet doctors and wait in even longer queues, irrespective of emergency.”

Microfiber and nanofiber-based monitoring devices can provide solutions to these problems, he added.

“With the help of these devices, the patient’s vital signals can be monitored continuously at any time, anywhere and if any abnormalities are detected, physician, family members and emergency services can be informed immediately and simultaneously,” he said.

By detecting health irregularities early, these devices can “improve the living standards through undertaking of subsequent preventive measures,” Ramakrishna said.

When to expect the technology

One type of microfiber and nanofiber-based technology that could become available in the next 3 years, according to Ramakrishna, are piezoelectric sensors, which are powered through mechanical energy.

Others, such triboelectric and tribo-piezoelectric-based technologies, could also become available to the public in 5 to 8 years, he said.

Amutha Chinnappan

Amutha Chinnappan, PhD, a senior research fellow and study coauthor, told Healio Primary Care that “so far the innovation is right on track, but to reassure the medical community, there should be more research on improving the detection sensitivity of the devices with fast response time.”

She said that researchers are working to create platforms in which multiple vital signs can be tracked together without interference.

Vundrala Sumedha Reddy, who is also affiliated with the study, said in an interview that “the authenticity of the detected signals should be validated with the multiple trials, documentation, data analysis and compared with the signals obtained from the existing standard medical devices.”