Mobile health management is not that simple (iii): wearable sensing

Editor's note: The writer Zhang Yi (personal email: mzhang3@sogh.mb.ca), director of the Seven Oaks Health Management Center of Canada, consultant of the China Hospital Association Health and Disease Management Branch, and also a medical microfluidic chip and wearable device at Manitoba University in Canada. In his view, the increasingly hot mobile health management app still has many flaws, on the one hand, more valuable information on physical markers, on the other hand, health models are too standardized and rough. Another author, Sun, is a doctor at Manitoba University in Canada.

In the previous two series, Zhang Bows talked about the issues that need to be noted in the mobile Health management app for women's health and fitness and weight loss. In this article, the two authors will talk about the hottest wearable devices and health management relationships.

People's health is always in the dynamic development process. It will change with our daily diet, exercise and even sleep. This leads to the difficulty of mastering our health in time. Mobile health is to make up for the traditional health screening can not complete real-time health testing and reporting, and as a new medical field has gradually become more and more people welcome.

Wearable sensor because it is not limited by time and place, small size, easy to carry, easy to operate, beautiful fashion and other advantages, has become an integral part of mobile health. If mobile health is a smart, healthy, beautiful, genetically fine baby that has been carefully nurtured by traditional health tests, the use of smartphones and wearable sensors has undoubtedly nurtured her as a darling of wisdom, fitness, fashion and elegance.

Wearable sensor is mainly divided into two kinds of physical and chemical sensors because of its different detection principle. They provide real-time physiological or biomechanical health monitoring. Common wearable physical sensor products include the following:

Wrist rings. The current combination of smartphones and sports watches has replaced old-fashioned pedometer. The smart device can synchronize GPD tracking with heart rate test, not only real-time monitoring, but also remote connection to other devices, facilitate data processing and storage.

Heart rate band. The chest-band sensor is placed near the thoracic cavity to measure cardiovascular indices such as heart rate and R. Many chest bands also have the ability to measure motion speed, distance and posture. Health enthusiasts can use it to monitor their workout speed and heart condition in real time, thus adjusting the intensity of exercise appropriately.

Step meter. Pedometer sensors are usually placed on running shoes or insoles to measure movement, speed, and distance directly by the movement of the feet. The pedometer can be used with sports watch or smartphone, and is widely used in the clinical and non clinical field of sports performance monitoring.

Motion sensors. Small sensors can be glued to the body like a Band-Aid to transmit body motion parameters to smartphone applications. Sensor slices that are attached to different parts of the body have different effects. For example, a sensor piece attached to a leg can provide data on the body's physical strength, muscle fatigue and endurance by testing the muscle contraction and displacement of the legs. Chest-mount sensors that consistently measure heart rates are becoming more popular, and there is a tendency to replace chest-band sensors.

Smart clothes sensor. As the name suggests, in the continuous development of electronic components and new clothing materials, sensors and apparel integration is no longer a dream. Clothing sensors are somewhat less susceptible to detection than other wearable sensor products. It can be applied to body impact detection, biometric signal monitoring, biomechanical monitoring, and biofeedback.

The data monitored by the use of wearable sensors and smartphone software can reflect the amount of exercise and the appropriateness of movement, and help to set a reasonable exercise prescription for the individual.

Traditional wearable chemical sensors are often neglected because of their limitations in monitoring human health conditions. However, with the development of non implantable electrochemical and biosensor, the fact monitoring of wearable sensors on human health has not only remained in motion. Non-implantable electrochemical sensors break the traditional implantable chemical sensors that only intermittently detect the limits of blood and urine samples, using the detection of tears, saliva, sweat, and skin tissue fluids and other bodily fluids to fill in real-time monitoring of disease and efficacy gaps.

A sensor based on saliva. Because of its complex biological fluid characteristics, saliva can be used as a substitute for blood samples. Detection of saliva can achieve the monitoring of human emotions, hormones, nutrition and metabolism. Traditional saliva sensors are embedded in dentures. The new saliva sensor has improved into a totem on the teeth and combined the sensor with the remote wireless data transmission.

A sensor based on tear. Tears contain proteins, electrolytes, fats and metabolites from the lacrimal gland, as well as eye-epidermal cells, annular cells, and blood. The tear sensor can be used mainly in the monitoring and management of diabetes mellitus by the correlation of glucose content between tear and blood. Researchers have fused tear-based sensors into contact lenses. However, such sensor devices have not yet been developed for direct processing and reading of data. The sensor's hard materials make contact lenses that cause pain or inflammation of the glasses. In addition, sensor energy issues need to be further studied. Google is now developing this sensor

A sensor based on sweat. The composition of sweat can fully reflect the health status of human body. For example, the determination of sodium, lactate, ammonium and calcium in sweat can be used to react to electrolyte imbalances, cystic fibrosis, physical stress, bone osteoporosis, and the loss of minerals in the bones. The sensor based on sweat mainly has two kinds of fabric plastic sensor and new epidermal sensor.

A sensor based on skin tissue fluid. Skin tissue fluids are commonly used to detect diabetes, hereditary metabolic disease, organ failure, and pharmacodynamic studies. The close relationship between skin tissue fluid and blood sugar has aroused the concern of many scholars. But this kind of sensor is more unstable, it will deform with the movement of human body. In addition, the energy problem of the sensor is still to be solved.

We have developed urine sensors that can perceive oxidative stress and chronic inflammation. Sweat sensors are also being developed for the detection of lactic acid.

Both physical and chemical-based wearable sensors create good conditions for safe and fast real-time detection of human health. The continuous improvement and development of wearable sensors combined with smartphone software is bound to divert the center of patient care from the hospital to the home, thus greatly reducing the utilization and cost of medical resources.