Imagine if skin markings could be used to unlock your phone and gain entry to your home? What if your blood pressure and hydration levels could be monitored in the background, alerting you if the values are outside the normal range. The digital tattoo could be a minilab that makes our skin interactive and renders healthcare invisible. This is our summary of the most recent trends and research efforts to make this happen.
The next frontier in technology
A general trend has emerged in the evolution of medical devices: the tools are becoming smaller, more digitalized and more connected. In the past, medical instruments were designed to record and measure measurements. However, today the goal is to make it easier, more accurate, and more simple to use the right tools.
The triumphant march of wearables and health sensors does not end at making ever smaller, more compact smartwatches and clothing clips. However, the Lumo Run is the next frontier in technological advancement and will definitely bring us closer to the human body than we have ever been. Flexible sensors that are thin and invisible, made from flexible materials, appear first on our clothes as digital tattoos. Then they get in our stomachs as digestibles.
For sports medicine, there are already digitalized garments that can improve performance. HexoSkin, for example, has developed a shirt that uses sensors to measure heart rate, respiration, steps taken, pace and calories burned. Researchers in nanotechnology are also experimenting with extremely small robots, which can literally swim through your bodily fluids. In 2017, the FDA approved the first electronic pill with a digital tracking system for ingestion. Let’s now see how digital tattoos will crawl on our skins.
What is a digital tattoo?
Flexible electronics and materials have made it possible to apply digital tattoos, also known as electronic tattoos, on the skin for days, or even weeks, thanks to 3D printing technology. To apply the tattoo to the skin, some researchers use graphene, gold nanorods and other polymers with rubber backing. Experts believe these skin tattoos or patches are just the beginning. In the future, there will be other techniques like henna, tanning and makeup.
These waterproof, flexible materials that resist stretching and twisting can be used in conjunction with tiny electrodes to transmit data about the wearer to smartphones and other connected devices. Digital tattoos have the potential to unlock tablets, open doors and support border crossing. The digital tattoo was created by Motorola Corporation in 2014 to identify its Moto X smartphone. The digital tattoo sticker unlocks your smartphone without any passwords or patterns.
The tiny patches measure electrophysiological parameters and could be used by healthcare professionals to diagnose and monitor critical conditions like heart arrhythmia and premature baby’s heart activity, as well as sleep disorders, and brain activities. It can also monitor vital signs 24 hours per day, without the need to charge, making it ideal for monitoring patients at high risk of stroke. The digital tattoo can send alerts to medical system, it could call the ambulance, and transmit relevant data.
The future could see tiny multifaceted patches that track muscle movements around speech. These patches could be applied to the throat and turn the tattoos into a half-way house of a wireless hands free kit. It can also pick up sub-vocal commands since you don’t have to actually speak loudly. The well-designed, figurative and non-figurative electronic tattoos can track brain signals with enough accuracy that they can control a computer. But that is still a distant future. Here are some research projects that have already led to digital tattoos.
The most sophisticated digital tattoos
1. Wearable glucose monitor with enzymes
These technologies have been in the works for quite some time by nanoengineers at University of California, San Diego. They developed a temporary tattoo to extract and measure glucose levels between skin cells. This flexible device is made up of electrodes that have been carefully printed on temporary tattoo papers. Two electrodes are used to measure blood sugar. They apply a small amount of electricity to force glucose molecules below the skin to rise to surface. The center began a clinical trial in spring 2018 with 50 people, ranging from 18 to 75 years old, who had either type 1 or 2, or diabetes secondary to other causes. The trials are currently being conducted, according to recent reports. However, they may be close to completion.
The University of California San Diego has an even more recent announcement. It is called “Lab on the Skin”, a wearable device that can monitor glucose, alcohol, and lactate levels. It is approximately the same size as six quarters. The device is applied to the skin using a Velcro-like strip of microneedles (or microscopic needles), that measure one-fifth of the width of a human’s hair. The device is comfortable to wear. The microneedles penetrate only the skin’s surface to detect biomolecules in the interstitial fluid. This is the fluid that surrounds the skin cells. The device can be worn on your upper arm, and wirelessly sends data to a customized smartphone app.
The wearable is made up of a disposable microneedle pad and a case of electronic components. The microneedle tips react with different enzymes in the interstitial fluid. Five volunteers tested the wearable while they exercised, ate, and drank. The readings closely matched those measured using standard laboratory equipment.
1.2 Non-enzyme glucose monitoring using sweat
The Penn State University research team also tried to measure glucose levels in sweat. Laser-induced graphene is used in the sensor. It also contains a nickel-gold alloy, which can detect very low levels without enzymes. The sensor has a microfluidic chamber that draws sweat. An alkaline solution reacts to the sweat and causes a reaction within the alloy, which then produces a significant electrical signal.
This technology uses sweat to draw into a microfluidic chamber where glucose reacts in an alkaline solution to create a compound that reacts with the nickel-gold alloy. The electrical signal produced by this reaction can be used to indicate the amount glucose in the sweat.
The researchers have so far tested it with volunteers. They found it can successfully track blood glucose changes before and after meals.
Huanyu Cheng, a researcher who was involved in the study, stated that they wanted to collaborate with doctors and other health care professionals to find out how technology can be used to monitor patients daily.
Similar devices were also created by South Korean researchers using graphene. Professor Dae-Hyeong Kim, Seoul National University assistant, and a group of researchers created sensors that detect temperature and pH/chemical composition in sweat from people with type II diabetes. Type II diabetes. The system then beams the data to an accompanying smartphone application. The app calculates how much medication is required if the system determines that wearers require medicine based upon their sweat. The microneedle array on the patch injects the correct amount of medication into the body.
2. MC10
This Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company is the most well-known for its pioneering work in digital tattoos. John Rogers and his research group laid the foundation for the breakthrough technology in stretchable electronics on which MC10 is based. The company tirelessly develops silicon devices thinned to a fraction the width of a human’s hair. They also use stretchable metallic interconnects and elastic rubberlike plasticmers to create complete powered systems that can sense, measure, analyse and communicate information.
MC10’s BioStampRC sensor was launched in 2016. It is a waterproof, adhesive patch that sticks to skin and monitors muscle performance, heart activity, and movement. This tiny wearable has a Bluetooth radio as well as a small battery.
3. Graphene-based, electronic tattoo
Researchers based at the University of Texas developed graphene-based tattoos that are almost transparent. Researchers usually use gold for electronic components. Here, graphene was used. This is a thinner, more conductive material that allows the skin to naturally wrinkle.
These patches can be worn as wearable electronic devices due to graphene’s unique electronic properties. They allow for biometric applications such as monitoring the heart and brain activity. Wearers of these tattoos can even interact directly with machines. These tattoos can be removed with just a piece adhesive tape. They are fully functional for many days. These tattoos may become more affordable as graphene costs fall.
4. Dermal Abyss
Harvard researchers and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created colour-changing digital tattoos as part of the project Dermal Abyss. A bunch of biosensitive paints change colours in parallel to how your body changes. The inks measure the pH, glucose, and sodium levels in the interstitial fluid that surrounds the cells.
Researchers have created a green ink which intensifies with the wearer’s sodium level rising. This is often a sign that they are dehydrated. A second green ink that turns brown with increased glucose levels can be used to monitor diabetes patients. Early tests showed that pink inks became blue with an increase in pH. However, researchers continue to test new inks.
The Digital Tattoos will make healthcare seamless and invisible
Imagine a digital tattoo that measures your heart rate in a dolphin-shaped shape on your ankle. What about a glucose monitor that forms a sailing boat on the belly? Digital tattoos are becoming the norm, according to the Medical Futurist. These sensors are seamless and thin, so they can replace wrist-worn watches and smartwatches. They won’t require batteries and will receive the energy from electrophysiological processes.
This is a remarkable and hopeful way to shift from reactive “sickcare” to preventive as also as predictive health. These little digital tattoos can instantly alert if a measurement is outside of the normal range or significantly different from the average. The user or the doctor could then respond quickly.
It’s a standard practice in other industries. It’s both absurd and frightening that our cars are brought to the mechanic when they indicate a problem. But we don’t use our own signals to do this. They don’t get it, or they don’t know. The Medical Futurist hopes the digital tattoos that are so beautifully designed will make a difference.
The Medical Futurist published the article Digital Tattoos Make Healthcare More Invisible.
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By: berci.mesko
Title: Digital Tattoos Make Healthcare More Invisible
Sourced From: medicalfuturist.com/digital-tattoos-make-healthcare-more-invisible
Published Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000
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