It was neither some big-name footballer nor some FA bigwig who kicked the first goal at the opening ceremony of the 2014 World Cup, but a paralyzed teenager, who wrote this brilliant mileage of her life with the help of a mechanical exoskeleton and a mind-controlled helmet. So, how did he do it? How did this paralyzed teenager get up and kick ass? And how can we get faster and more comprehensive access to medical care without leaving our homes? How can we live healthier lives? In this era of 4G networks, the Internet of Things, and the rise of sensors, how will these technologies energize medical devices?
Stand up with them!
How does a paralyzed Brazilian boy move his otherwise uncontrollable legs? He relied on "mind-controlled" technology and "3D printing". 3D printing, which is no longer an unfamiliar technology, is a type of rapid prototyping that uses a digital model file as the basis for the creation of a 3D printout, using powdered metals or plastics. The use of powdered metal or plastic and other bondable materials, through the way of layer by layer printing to construct objects. 3D printing is usually used digital technology material printer to realize, with the traditional paper two-dimensional printing is different, 3D printing out of the thing is three-dimensional three-dimensional. As long as you have enough raw materials, printing cars, organs is not a problem, and has even been used to print fruit!
In the Idea-2-Product 3D printing lab at Colorado State University, researchers have developed helmets for controlling exoskeletons. The helmet houses electrodes that correspond to different locations on a person's head to help their brain better communicate with the electrodes. Because the helmet must be customized to fit the wearer's head, the researchers used 3D printing to help create the helmet's liner. This liner must be able to protect the head and the electrodes, and it has to fit the helmet. When the paralyzed teenager thinks about walking, the electrodes transmit brain signals to a small computer that is carried behind her like a backpack, which translates those wireless command signals into movement.
Wear your health
Such an original Brazilian World Cup opening ceremony has not let you linger? So, what kind of healthcare convenience can we, as ordinary people, enjoy by relying on smart technology? That's where wearable devices come in. A Chinese medical electronics company's brand ihealth in 2014 CES (International Consumer Electronics Show) before the opening of the release of two wearable medical devices, respectively, dynamic blood pressure monitor and wearable pulse oximeter.
Dynamic Blood Pressure Monitor
High blood pressure is a direct cause of many high-risk cardiovascular diseases. In modern society, the elderly are often alone, children can not take care of their left and right, and even more will appear "white coat blood pressure" (i.e., normal blood pressure, see the doctor when the blood pressure surge) phenomenon. The society is in urgent need of portable blood pressure measurement equipment, wearable blood pressure monitor came into being. So, what is blood pressure? Blood pressure is the lateral pressure per unit area on the walls of blood vessels as the blood flows through them. Since blood vessels are divided into arteries, capillaries and veins, there are arterial blood pressure, capillary pressure and venous pressure, and the blood pressure usually referred to refers to arterial blood pressure.
Blood pressure monitor is through the sensor to detect the body's arterial blood vessel wall vibration caused by the cuff pressure small changes, the most commonly used method is the oscillation method, the basic principle is to use the cuff tied to the arm, through the inflatable pump to the cuff inflatable to block the propagation of pulsation in the blood vessels, to reach a certain pressure (generally 124~316kPa) after the start of deflation, when the air pressure to a certain extent, the When the air pressure reaches a certain level, the blood flow can pass through the blood vessels, and there is a certain amount of oscillating wave, gradually deflate, the oscillating wave is getting bigger and bigger, and then deflate, because the contact between the cuff and the arm is getting looser and looser, so the pressure and fluctuation detected by the pressure sensor is getting smaller and smaller, and the pressure sensor can detect the pressure and fluctuation inside the cuff in real time. The oscillating wave propagates to the pressure sensor in the machine through the air tube, and after the corresponding amplification, filtering circuit, analog/digital signal conversion, central processor control and other processing links, the pulsation and pressure signals transmitted to the airway through the cuff are converted into digital signals, and then further processed to derive the systolic pressure, diastolic pressure, average pressure, and other data of the blood pressure. This ambulatory blood pressure monitor can be connected to a mobile device via Bluetooth and USB to upload the data to the healthcare provider, and is usually worn outside by the user to provide 24-hour blood pressure monitoring.
2. Wearable Oxygen Saturation Monitor
Oxygen saturation, which is the percentage of the oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO2) volume of the blood to the total hemoglobin (Hb) volume, is an important physiological parameter in the respiratory cycle. Many respiratory diseases can cause a decrease in oxygen saturation in human blood, which can be life-threatening in severe cases. Well, the basic principle of this blood oxygen saturation monitor is: the oxygenated hemoglobin and reduced hemoglobin in the blood have different absorption characteristics in the visible and near infrared spectral range, reduced hemoglobin absorbs more red-frequency light and less infrared-frequency light; while oxygenated hemoglobin absorbs less red-frequency light and more infrared-frequency light, so that according to the human body on the This allows for the determination of oxygen saturation based on the difference between the body's absorption of red and infrared light.
A typical oximeter sensor has a pair of LEDs that pass through a translucent part of the patient's body (usually the fingertips or earlobes) directly in front of a photodiode. One is a red LED with a wavelength of 660 nm; the other is infrared with a wavelength of 940 nm, and the percentage of blood oxygen is calculated based on measuring these two wavelengths of light with different absorption rates as they pass through the body. While the wearable oxygen saturation monitor uses digital/analog signal conversion to control the LED dual light source alternately, with the light-frequency conversion receiver head as the sensor, the light intensity signal is converted into a frequency signal, which is directly sent to the microcontroller for collection. According to the principle of reflective calculation to get the results, and then send the data by wireless signal. Some oximetry monitors are also designed to eliminate the interference acquired in dynamic environments for computational processing, making the oximetry data more accurate.
SPOMedical (USA) has launched a "blood oxygen watch" that monitors a user's oxygen saturation during sleep, thereby reducing the risk of sleep apnea in people who suffer from breathing problems at night. iHealth's wearable oximetry monitor is even more convenient, as it continuously monitors a user's oxygen saturation and pulse rate with fingertip sensors and connects to a wrist device that monitors the user's oxygen saturation during normal daily activities or at night.
I'm a T-shirt, but I'm more than just a shirt
If people think that using all these monitors and wireless devices is still too much of a hassle, there's now an even easier one -- the T-shirt. Take HealthWatch, an Israeli healthcare startup, for example, which has an electrocardiogram sensor (ECG) built into its smart T-shirt, which has the functionality of a 3- to 15-channel ECG machine. Typically, only after a patient receives a 12-channel ECG machine checkup session can a doctor officially determine whether the patient is suffering from heart disease. And it often takes quite some time from the time the patient reports his/her condition to the time he/she receives the examination. If the patient wears this smart T-shirt, the cardiologist will be able to receive real-time ECG data sent from the T-shirt. In this way, the doctor will be able to timely and accurately understand the patient's condition in order to give a timely treatment plan. Such an amazing T-shirt can also be machine washed and dried, the T-shirt has a built-in electronic component that can store up to 70 hours of data or transmit the data to an Android smartphone with a wireless signal. Of course, the user has to remove the electronics before washing the T-shirt. Moreover, the T-shirts can be washed at least 50 times without damage.
In addition to tracking the body's vital signs, the smart T-shirt developed by OMsignal also records the body's calorie consumption and stress levels. This eliminates the need to wear smart belts, handbands and other devices. After all, we all have to wear clothes to go out ah. In fact, it works on a very simple principle. Smart T-shirts are woven from fiber optics and wires with built-in micro-sensors. The sensors embedded in the fabric can record more than 30 cardio-physiological parameters during the wearer's daily activities. Among them, the inductive volume tracing method is utilized to monitor respiratory conditions by continuously transmitting high-frequency, low-intensity currents to a sinusoidally arranged array of wires embedded in the chest and abdominal positions of the outer garment; heart rate is calculated by using the captured single-channel ECG signals; and human body position and physical activity are sensed by a three-dimensional accelerometer. This smart T-shirt can be connected to other peripheral devices and can also measure blood pressure, oxygen saturation, body temperature and skin temperature. These measurements are transmitted to an electronic data processing center on the Internet, where the results are presented to doctors in the form of briefs or high-resolution waveforms, allowing healthcare professionals to monitor the user's health and make accurate diagnoses at any time.
Skin Beyond Skin
In all of the refreshingly different wearable devices mentioned above, there is a key device -- the sensor. It senses changes in external conditions, such as warmth, cold, speed, and reacts accordingly, just like our skin. Sensors can be categorized into piezoresistive sensors, piezocapacitive sensors, piezoelectric sensors, etc. according to their respective principles. And sensors and textile technology combined with the development of e-textile technology, which used more piezoelectric sensors and fiber optics. Ordinary sensors such as resistance or capacitance sensor performance by the material (or structure) mechanical hysteresis and electrical hysteresis, compared with the wire or related sensors, optical fiber not only does not generate heat, but also insensitive to electromagnetic radiation, not affected by the discharge phenomenon, so the application is more widely used.
The functionality of sensors, actuators, electronics, power supplies, and other components in e-textiles can be achieved in two ways, by integrating conventional sensors, such as microcontrollers, light-emitting diodes, optical fibers, and piezoelectric sensors, into the fabrics, and by developing devices based on an organic material, the electrically activated polymer (EAP). The development of new textile technologies (e.g., weaving metal wires into fabrics) has accelerated the use of e-textiles made using the first approach for applications such as electrical connectivity, data communication, and power supply. Then, different sensors are needed for sensing different signals, such as polymerized vinylidene fluoride, which has a piezoelectric coefficient of 24-27 pC/N and is one of the most commonly used piezoelectric polymers. It is capable of detecting pulse at the carotid and radial arteries, apical pulse and sound.
In the opening ceremony of the World Cup in Brazil, which made soccer fans crazy, the physically disabled Brazilian teenager relied on advanced technology to kick the "first ball", can we see from this technology will bring unlimited possibilities for our health? Once upon a time, exoskeletons, "magic helmets", and smart T-shirts were just the stuff of science fiction movies. Now, wearable medical devices are entering our daily lives, defending our health in a more convenient, faster, and smarter way!