Microelectronic fibers for multiplexed sweat sensing

Recent advances in smart wearable sensors for continuous human health monitoring

In recent years, the biochemical and biological research areas have shown great interest in a smart wearable sensor because of its increasing prevalence and high potential to monitor human health in a non-invasive manner by continuous screening of biomarkers dispersed throughout the biological analytes, as well as real-time diagnostic tools and time-sensitive information compared to conventional hospital-centered system. These smart wearable sensors offer an innovative option for evaluating and investigating human health by incorporating a portion of recent advances in technology and engineering that can enhance real-time point-of-care-testing capabilities. Smart wearable sensors have emerged progressively with a mixture of multiplexed biosensing, microfluidic sampling, and data acquisition systems incorporated with flexible substrate and bodily attachments for enhanced wearability, portability, and reliability. There is a good chance that smart wearable sensors will be relevant to the early detection and diagnosis of disease management and control. Therefore, pioneering smart wearable sensors into reality seems extremely promising despite possible challenges in this cutting-edge technology for a better future in the healthcare domain. This review presents critical viewpoints on recent developments in wearable sensors in the upcoming smart digital health monitoring in real-time scenarios. In addition, there have been proactive discussions in recent years on materials selection, design optimization, efficient fabrication tools, and data processing units, as well as their continuous monitoring and tracking strategy with system-level integration such as internet-of-things, cyber-physical systems, and machine learning algorithms.

Smart Bandaid Integrated with Fully Textile OECT for Uric Acid Real-Time Monitoring in Wound Exudate

Hard-to-heal wounds (i.e., severe and/or chronic) are typically associated with particular pathologies or afflictions such as diabetes, immunodeficiencies, compression traumas in bedridden people, skin grafts, or third-degree burns. In this situation, it is critical to constantly monitor the healing stages and the overall wound conditions to allow for better-targeted therapies and faster patient recovery. At the moment, this operation is performed by removing the bandages and visually inspecting the wound, putting the patient at risk of infection and disturbing the healing stages. Recently, new devices have been developed to address these issues by monitoring important biomarkers related to the wound health status, such as pH, moisture, etc. In this contribution, we present a novel textile chemical sensor exploiting an organic electrochemical transistor (OECT) configuration based on poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) for uric acid (UA)-selective monitoring in wound exudate. The combination of special medical-grade textile materials provides a passive sampling system that enables the real-time and non-invasive analysis of wound fluid: UA was detected as a benchmark analyte to monitor the health status of wounds since it represents a relevant biomarker associated with infections or necrotization processes in human tissues. The sensors proved to reliably and reversibly detect UA concentration in synthetic wound exudate in the biologically relevant range of 220-750 μM, operating in flow conditions for better mimicking the real wound bed. This forerunner device paves the way for smart bandages integrated with real-time monitoring OECT-based sensors for wound-healing evaluation.