Bioengineered Textiles and Nonwovens – the convergence of bio-miniaturisation and electroactive conductive polymers for assistive healthcare, portable power and design-led wearable technology

Today, there is an opportunity to bring together creative design activities to exploit the responsive and adaptive ‘smart’ materials that are a result of rapid development in electro, photo active polymers or OFEDs (organic thin film electronic devices), bio-responsive hydrogels, integrated into MEMS/NEMS devices and systems respectively. Some of these integrated systems are summarised in this paper, highlighting their use to create enhanced functionality in textiles, fabrics and non-woven large area thin films. By understanding the characteristics and properties of OFEDs and bio polymers and how they can be transformed into implementable physical forms, innovative products and services can be developed, with wide implications. The paper outlines some of these opportunities and applications, in particular, an ambient living platform, dealing with human centred needs, of people at work, people at home and people at play. The innovative design affords the accelerated development of intelligent materials (interactive, responsive and adaptive) for a new product & service design landscape, encompassing assistive healthcare (smart bandages and digital theranostics), ambient living, renewable energy (organic PV and solar textiles), interactive consumer products, interactive personal & beauty care (e-Scent) and a more intelligent built environment

Perspective—Challenges in Developing Wearable Electrochemical Sensors for Longitudinal Health Monitoring

Wearable electrochemical sensors have the potential to overcome the problem of infrequent clinical visits that leads to transient events of potential diagnostic importance being unduly overlooked. The promise of real-time, personalized health care has driven multidisciplinary work on fabricating various forms of wearable sensors. Although remarkable advances in device form factor and integrated circuit design have been achieved, notable hurdles, such as shelf life, reuseability, flex and sweat resistance, and longitudinal performance, remain unaddressed. This perspective seeks to summarize major advances in current wearable electrochemical sensors and to highlight the most pressing challenges that will benefit from collective research endeavors

Updates of Wearing Devices (WDs) In Healthcare, And Disease Monitoring

 With the rising pervasiveness of growing populace, aging and chronic illnesses consistently rising medical services costs, the health care system is going through a crucial change from the conventional hospital focused system to an individual-focused system. Since the twentieth century, wearable sensors are becoming widespread in medical care and biomedical monitoring systems, engaging consistent estimation of biomarkers for checking of the diseased condition and wellbeing, clinical diagnostics and assessment in biological fluids like saliva, blood, and sweat. Recently, the improvements have been centered around electrochemical and optical biosensors, alongside advances with the non-invasive monitoring of biomarkers, bacteria and hormones, etc. Wearable devices have created with a mix of multiplexed biosensing, microfluidic testing and transport frameworks incorporated with flexible materials and body connections for additional created wear ability and effortlessness. These wearables hold guarantee and are fit for a higher understanding of the relationships between analyte focuses inside the blood or non-invasive biofluids and feedback to the patient, which is fundamentally significant in ideal finding, therapy, and control of diseases. In any case, cohort validation studies and execution assessment of wearable biosensors are expected to support their clinical acceptance. In the current review, we discussed the significance, highlights, types of wearables, difficulties and utilizations of wearable devices for biological fluids for the prevention of diseased conditions and real time monitoring of human wellbeing. In this, we sum up the different wearable devices that are developed for health care monitoring and their future potential has been discussed in detail

Wearable bio and chemical sensors

Chemical and biochemical sensors have experienced tremendous growth in the past decade due to advances in material chemistry combined with the emergence of digital communication technologies and wireless sensor networks (WSNs) [1]. The emergence of wearable chemical and biochemical sensors is a relatively new concept that poses unique challenges to the field of wearable sensing. This is because chemical sensors have a more complex mode of operation, compared to physical transducers, in that they must interact in some manner with specific molecular targets in the sample medium. To understand the challenges in developing wearable chemical and biochemical sensors the traits of these devices will be discussed in this introductory section. Following this the potential parameters of interest are presented and examples of wearable systems are discussed. A range of sampling techniques and methods of chemical sensing are presented along with integration issues and design challenges. Finally, some of the main application areas of this novel technology are discussed

Textile chemical sensors based on conductive polymers for the analysis of sweat

Wearable textile chemical sensors are promising devices due to the potential applications in medicine, sports activities and occupational safety and health. Reaching the maturity required for commercialization is a technology challenge that mainly involves material science because these sensors should be adapted to flexible and light-weight substrates to preserve the comfort of the wearer. Conductive polymers (CPs) are a fascinating solution to meet this demand, as they exhibit the mechanical properties of polymers, with an electrical conductivity typical of semiconductors. Moreover, their biocompatibility makes them promising candidates for effectively interfacing the human body. In particular, sweat analysis is very attractive to wearable technologies as perspiration is a naturally occurring process and sweat can be sampled non-invasively and continuously over time. This review discusses the role of CPs in the development of textile electrochemical sensors specifically designed for real-time sweat monitoring and the main challenges related to this topic

Textile-based wearable sensors for assisting sports performance

There is a need for wearable sensors to assess physiological signals and body kinematics during exercise. Such sensors need to be straightforward to use, and ideally the complete system integrated fully within a garment. This would allow wearers to monitor their progress as they undergo an exercise training programme without the need to attach external devices. This takes physiological monitoring into a more natural setting. By developing textile sensors the intelligence is integrated into a sports garment in an innocuous manner. A number of textile based sensors are presented here that have been integrated into garments for various sports applications

Wearable Electrochemical Sensors for Monitoring Performance Athletes

Nowadays, wearable sensors such as heart rate monitors and pedometers are in common use. The use of wearable systems such as these for personalized exercise regimes for health and rehabilitation is particularly interesting. In particular, the true potential of wearable chemical sensors, which for the real-time ambulatory monitoring of bodily fluids such as tears, sweat, urine and blood has not been realized. Here we present a brief introduction into the fields of ionogels and organic electrochemical transistors, and in particular, the concept of an OECT transistor incorporated into a sticking-plaster, along with a printable “ionogel” to provide a wearable biosensor platform

Wearable electrochemical biosensors in North America

Tremendous research and commercialization efforts around the world are focused on developing novel wearable electrochemical biosensors that can noninvasively and continuously screen for biochemical markers in body fluids for the prognosis, diagnosis and management of diseases, as well as the monitoring of fitness. Researchers in North America are leading the development of innovative wearable platforms that can comfortably comply to the human body and efficiently sample fluids such as sweat, interstitial fluids, tear and saliva for the electrochemical detection of biomarkers through various sensing approaches such as potentiometric ion selective electrodes and amperometric enzymatic sensors. We start this review with a historical timeline overviewing the major milestones in the development of wearable electrochemical sensors by North American institutions. We then describe how such research efforts have led to pioneering developments and are driving the advancement and commercialization of wearable electrochemical sensors: from minimally invasive continuous glucose monitors for chronic disease management to non-invasive sweat electrolyte sensors for dehydration monitoring in fitness applications. While many countries across the globe have contributed significantly to this rapidly emerging field, their contributions are beyond the scope of this review. Furthermore, we share our perspective on the promising future of wearable electrochemical sensors in applications spanning from remote and personalized healthcare to wellness