by Mark Ollig
After the interruption of spring, caused by the brief
re-appearance of winter snow, yours truly finally feels confident in saying,
“The snow and cold is behind us.”
The warmth of the recent sun-filled days melted the
snow, and has hopefully left all of us feeling rejuvenated, as we anticipate
the approaching summer months.
A mystery photo I posted on my Facebook page brought a
couple interesting comments: “What is this? A solar paneled something?”
Another asked, “What’s that? R2D2 sun razor?”
The photo was of a thin, flexible, high-tech,
future-looking, stick-on skin patch positioned on the arm of someone using it
to monitor their body’s vital signs.
Of course, there are other stick-on medical patches,
but this one is unique because of how it uses microfluidic construction.
This allows programmable electronics to be attached to
a thin, elastic casing filled with fluid within the base of a wearable patch.
This patch’s electronic components are connected using
special pleated wiring, arranged in a paper-folding, origami-like fashion.
The electronic chip components are bonded to the
underlying patch, yet suspended by using small-scale support points.
This method of bonding allows the patch to bend and be
flexible, without the linked components being compromised.
These components are made up of smaller capacitors,
batteries, radio transmitters, sensors, power inductors, filters, and other
small-scale electronic devices.
The components on the patch are designed to be,
eventually, wirelessly powered.
The patch itself is extremely soft, and can be easily
attached and removed from the skin’s surface.
One important advantage of using this microfluidic
patch is its use of special wiring which can extend and unfold itself while the
patch is twisted, or is bending. This prevents the attached electronic
components from becoming disconnected.
“When you measure motion on a wristwatch-type device,
your body is not very accurately or reliably coupled to the device,” said John
A. Rogers, a Swanland Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the
University of Illinois.
Rogers, along with Yonggang Huang of Northwestern
University, developed this new health monitoring electronic stick-on patch.
“We designed this device to monitor human health 24/7,
but without interfering with a person’s daily activity,” Huang said.
The stick-on patch is designed to be comfortably worn
during the day or night.
So, what can this medical patch actually monitor?
For starters, your EKG (electrocardiogram) and EEG
(electroencephalogram) information can be monitored and the data sent to your
cellphone or computer.
This data will then be transmitted directly to your
doctor or healthcare provider’s clinic.
Improved measurements should be obtained using this new
patch versus a wrist-worn device as the patch would be continuously adhered to
the skin, whereas, normal movement or twisting while wearing a wrist-worn
monitoring device produces background noise, which can cause incorrect
readings.
A user requiring long-term monitoring, such as needed
for sleep studies or stress testing, can use this new patch while going about
their normal physical movements and behaviors without worrying about the patch
disconnecting.
This was confirmed when researchers did side-by-side
comparison testing using traditional EKG and EEG monitors on patients.
They found the new wireless stick-on skin patch
performed similarly to the traditional sensors and monitors used. Also, wearing
the patch was more comfortable for the patients.
When attached or bonded on the skin, the modern
sensors, circuits, radio, and power supply systems affixed on this small patch
have the ability to produce quality health-monitoring results.
“The application of stretchable electronics to medicine
has a lot of potential,” Soud Huang. “If we can continuously monitor our health
with a comfortable, small device that attaches to our skin, it could be
possible to catch health conditions before experiencing pain, discomfort, and
illness.”
A video demonstrating the flexibility of this new
stick-on, stretchable electronic medical patch can be seen at: http://tinyurl.com/bytes-stickon1.
