Infant Noninvasive Biomarker Monitoring Is Growing in Great Potential

Wearable sensors for noninvasive monitoring of physiological parameters are a growing technology in the clinical field. Especially in neonates(a baby who is less than four weeks old), the development of portable and unharmful monitoring devices is urgently needed because they cannot provide any feedback about discomfort or health complaints.

A Taiwan-based startup iWEECARE has created a smart thermometer patch, Temp Pal, which is a CE medical device certified, an innovated soft, wearable thermometer that continuously measure temperature and wirelessly sending temperature readings to a smartphone or tablet. Moreover, it weights 3 grams, only 1/3 of a dollar coin weight. The device is adapting 3M adhesive medical tape which will cause no allergy while sweating. Furthermore, it provides accurate temperature measurements with accuracy of +/- 0.05 ˚C. To its smart wearable design, via cloud database services through Bluetooth and your mobile device connecting wirelessly, users can access real time temperature data and react on real time alert.

Not only startup in Taiwan has sensed this trend but also the research team from University of Alcalá, Madrid, has developed a wireless pacifier with the in-built enzymatic biosensor. This baby-friendly device integrates saliva sampling with electrochemical sensing, along with miniaturized wireless electronics on a single pacifier platform. The infant’s mouth movements towards the pacifier result in efficient saliva pumping and promote unidirectional flow from the mouth to the electrochemical chamber.

Currently, only wearable sensors measuring physical parameters for vital signs have been developed. Thus, this wireless pacifier is seen as the first chemical wearable sensor for newborn monitoring. However, there is yet to conduct the clinical trials or human subject research on infants. It is believed that such integration simplifies the infant′s health monitoring in a real-time and represent the first wearable sensor focusing on chemical saliva sensing in newborns. Perhaps, in the near future, it can spread its medical coverage on the diabetes treatment.

Source: https://bit.ly/2pJZxsA

嬰幼兒非侵入式監測產品 後市看俏

非侵入式穿戴生物感測器越來越受歡迎,尤其針對新生兒的照護,這樣的產品需求更是日益增加。新創公司愛微科開發的穿戴式智慧體溫計Temp Pal已經陸續在各大通路販賣,這個重量只有3克的貼片,採用醫用級材質,在防水防汗之餘也不會對皮膚造成刺激過敏,可以連續監測體溫變化,誤差不超過+/-0.05 °C,透過藍牙連接APP,可將監測體溫傳輸到手機上,並繪製體溫變化圖表,一旦出現溫度異常,APP將會發出警示提醒監測者。

日前,西班牙馬德里阿爾卡拉大學(University of Alcalá)的團隊也研究開發出一款無線奶嘴,這個奶嘴內建感測器,可以即時追蹤嬰幼兒唾液中的葡萄糖水平。這個奶嘴的外觀跟一般奶嘴沒有什麼差異,只是在奶嘴裡面設立的檢測裝置,透過吸吮奶嘴時,少量的唾液進入通道中,透過電極上的酵素把葡萄糖轉化為電訊號,這些訊號將傳遞至手機上,可以藉此瞭解葡萄糖濃度的變化。

對於目前嬰幼兒的非侵入性設備多只用於監測心跳或呼吸頻率等特徵,這個奶嘴可以說是革命性的設計,雖然研究人員還沒有真正對嬰兒做過測試,但初步用於1型糖尿病患者的血糖監測成效不錯,未來可望將相關技術擴大發展,作為其他疾病的監測設備。

資料來源:https://bit.ly/2pJZxsA

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