In vivo optical investigation of short term skin water contact and moisturizer application using NIR spectroscopy

Effectiveness of the DreamSkin® garment on relieving symptoms of eczema/dermatitis using electrical and spectroscopic methods: A case study

Eczema is a common skin inflammatory disorder particularly among children. The treatment of which usually consists of the application of emollients and moisturisers to maintain skin moisture and to reduce the risk of inflammation, infection and exacerbative factors. Recently, DreamSkin® Health Limited has developed a unique polymer treatment for eczema. The polymer has been applied to medical grade silk clothing as a means of delivering the therapeutic benefits to the sufferers' skin. They claim that the polymer reduces the loss of moisture caused by evaporation from damaged skin; acts as a barrier against external irritants and helps to restore the skin's natural temperature management process. The aim of this study was to assess the products effectiveness at providing symptomatic relief for a volunteer with confirmed eczema and atopic dermatitis over a period of 14 days. Both skin capacitance and NIR spectra were collected during the course of the study, using the Corneometer® CM 825 and a spectrophotometer equipped with a customized reflectance probe for measurements in the Near Infrared region. The treated area showed visibly improved skin and overall results from both techniques showed a noticeable increase in skin water content after 14 days, peaking on the 7th day. However, slight differences were observed in the 7 magnitude of increase between the two instruments. Future work will focus on expanding this study to include more cases as well as performing statistical analysis to build upon our previous work in the area of skin hydration determinations using Near Infrared Spectroscopy.

Investigating skin barrier function utilizing reflectance NIR spectroscopy

Near Infrared Spectroscopy is seen as a potentially valuable technique for skin analysis, and has been employed by many previous studies to measure skin hydration, since it is competent of providing information regarding various functional groups including OH, CH and NH bands. The aim of this study was to investigate the capability of further utilizing this method by attempting to analyze skin barrier function as well as water content, through the evaluation of skin water uptake on two test sites, one untreated, and another treated with a high lipid moisturizer for a period of 7 days. Reflectance NIRS measurements were supported by capacitance readings obtained using the Corneometer® CM 825. Baseline recordings taken on the first day following treatment showed that more differences were observed between the treated and untreated sites in the regions belonging to, or are influenced by CH and NH groups rather than purely on the water bands. On the hand, moisture levels measured after placing a wet patch on the skin remained nearly equal for both sites but second derivative spectra showed that a clear contrast existed between absorbance heights at the water bands of the treated and untreated, suggesting that moisturizer use could have limited water uptake to a more superficial layer of the skin, whereas for the untreated site, the opposite would have been true and water was able to penetrate deeper. Overall, results here suggest that NIR spectroscopy can possibly provide valuable information not only on skin water contents but perhaps on other skin parameters such as barrier function.