A team of engineers at the U of A has developed a wireless health-monitoring system that gathers patient information and communicates that information in real time to a physician, hospital or the patient herself.
Vijay Varadan
Vijay Varadan, Distinguished Professor of electrical engineering, explained that the system includes a series of nanostructured, textile sensors integrated into a sports bra for women and vest for men. Via a lightweight and wireless module that snaps onto these garments, the sensors communicate with system software that relies on a smart phone to collect information, compress it and send it over a variety of wireless networksThe system monitors blood pressure, body temperature, respiratory rate, oxygen consumption, some neural activity and all the readings provided by a conventional electrocardiograph (ECG). The system does not require a cuff or any extra accessories to measure blood pressure and could therefore replace conventional blood-pressure monitors. It could also replace the cumbersome combination of ECG sensors and wires attached to patients while they walk on treadmills
The sensors, which are smaller than a dime, include gold nanowires, as well as flexible, conducting textile nanosensors. The sensors are made of arrays of gold nano-electrodes fabricated on a flexible substrate. The textile sensors are woven into the bra material. These sensors do not require conventional sticky electrodes or the use of gel
Electrical signals and other physiological data gathered by the sensors are sent to the snap-on wireless module. As the critical wireless component, the module is essentially a tiny, low-powered laptop computer that includes an amplifier, an antenna, a printed circuit board, a microprocessor, a Bluetooth module, a battery and various sensors. Varadan said that anticipated battery and Bluetooth upgrades will allow the researchers to build a smaller, lighter and flexible module that will replace the rigid box.
Data from the sensors then stream to commercially available cell phones and hand-held devices, which expand the use of the system beyond health care. By carrying a cell phone, athletes can monitor all signs mentioned above and other metrics, such as number of calories burned during a workout. To render clean data, the software includes filtering algorithms to mitigate problems due to motion of the hand-held device during exercise. Varadan holds the College of Engineering’s Twenty-First Century Endowed Chair in Nano and Bio and Medical Technologies.