BIOTEX-Biosensing Textiles for Personalised Healthcare Management

• Published in: IEEE transactions on information technology in biomedicine Vol. 14; no. 2; pp. 364 - 370
• Main Authors: Coyle, S., King-Tong Lau, Moyna, N., O'Gorman, D., Diamond, D., Di Francesco, F., Costanzo, D., Salvo, P., Trivella, M.G., De Rossi, D.E., Taccini, N., Paradiso, R., Porchet, J.-A., Ridolfi, A., Luprano, J., Chuzel, C., Lanier, T., Revol-Cavalier, F., Schoumacker, S., Mourier, V., Chartier, I., Convert, R., De-Moncuit, H., Bini, C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01.03.2010
• Subjects: Abdomen; Artificial Intelligence; Biocompatibility; Biomedical equipment; Biomedical materials; Biomedical monitoring; Biosensors; Chemical analysis; Chemical and biological sensors; Chemical sensors; Condition monitoring; Electrocardiography; Electronics, Medical - instrumentation; Health care; Humans; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; intelligent materials; Medical services; Monitoring, Physiologic - instrumentation; Monitoring, Physiologic - methods; multisensor systems; Oximetry; Precision Medicine; Respiration; Sensor systems; Sensors; Sternum; Surgical implants; Sweat; Sweat - chemistry; Telemetry; Textiles; Thorax; Wearable; Wearable sensors
• ISSN: 1089-7771; 1558-0032; 1558-0032
• DOI: 10.1109/TITB.2009.2038484

Textile-based sensors offer an unobtrusive method of continually monitoring physiological parameters during daily activities. Chemical analysis of body fluids, noninvasively, is a novel and exciting area of personalized wearable healthcare systems. BIOTEX was an EU-funded project that aimed to develop textile sensors to measure physiological parameters and the chemical composition of body fluids, with a particular interest in sweat. A wearable sensing system has been developed that integrates a textile-based fluid handling system for sample collection and transport with a number of sensors including sodium, conductivity, and pH sensors. Sensors for sweat rate, ECG, respiration, and blood oxygenation were also developed. For the first time, it has been possible to monitor a number of physiological parameters together with sweat composition in real time. This has been carried out via a network of wearable sensors distributed around the body of a subject user. This has huge implications for the field of sports and human performance and opens a whole new field of research in the clinical setting.