The textile-based medical sensor system is a flexible sensor made of textiles, which can sense and record the physiological signals of the subject without any form of active interaction with the subject. It is possible to provide personalized medical treatment when facing many health challenges. The solution also brings innovative high-tech applications and new market segments to traditional textiles. The use of textile materials can develop biosensors for a variety of signal monitoring. Among them, the sensors used for biophysical signal monitoring mainly include electrophysiological signal sensors, mechanical textile sensors, and temperature sensors.
The rapid development of new textile dry electrodes has brought revolutionary changes to the electrophysiological signal acquisition technology, which can meet the needs of monitoring electrical signals from the body anytime and anywhere. The electrophysiological signal monitoring technology based on textile dry electrodes has been widely used in the daily acquisition of key bioelectric potential signals such as electrocardiogram, electroencephalogram, electromyography, electroskin and electrooculogram. For example, Toray of Japan has developed a textile electrode technology, which is a highly conductive polyester nanofiber fabric impregnated with conductive polymer (PEDOT:PSS), which can increase the contact between the textile electrode and the monitoring surface and is resistant to washing. cycle.
Embroidering electrodes on the sleeve fabric can record electromyograms, analyze the dynamics of movement, identify muscle activation and detect muscle fatigue, help improve performance and promote healthy training. At the same time, textile electrodes can also be used to highly accurately control the activities of the hands and wrists by recording EMG.
The biomechanical textile sensor can capture the movement of the body and be used to assess physical conditions such as Parkinson's disease that affect motor skills. Such as yarn-type textile sensors are placed on the surface of joints (such as knees or elbows) to monitor the movement of limbs for rehabilitation and training, as well as to monitor small deformations of the throat and corners of the eyes; fabric pressure sensors are integrated in socks or sole insoles /Shoes, to meet the gait monitoring of clinical patients with rehabilitation after stroke and diabetes related pathology.
According to the temperature monitoring method, textile temperature sensors can be divided into pyroelectric temperature monitors, resistance temperature monitors and thermistors. The typical representative of the current temperature sensor products is the "LifeShirt" vest developed by VivoMetrics in the United States, which monitors body temperature through embedded optical fibers.
In addition, accurate plantar body temperature monitoring can be used to evaluate health. At present, only a small number of mature products have been put on the market abroad, such as the smart socks developed by the American baby health care company Owelt, which has built-in sensors in the smart socks to monitor the baby's skin temperature, heart rate, pulse and blood oxygen content. Siren has developed a sock for diabetic patients, implanting a miniature temperature sensor in the corresponding part of the sock to monitor the temperature change of the sole of the foot.
