An upper body garment with integrated sensors for people with neurological disorders - early development and evaluationShow others and affiliations
2019 (English)In: BMC Biomedical Engineering, ISSN 2524-4426, Vol. 1, no 3Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Sustainable development
According to the author(s), the content of this publication falls within the area of sustainable development.
Abstract [en]
Background: In neurology and rehabilitation the primary interest for using wearables is to supplement traditionalpatient assessment and monitoring in hospital settings with continuous data collection at home and in communitysettings. The aim of this project was to develop a novel wearable garment with integrated sensors designed forcontinuous monitoring of physiological and movement related variables to evaluate progression, tailor treatmentsand improve diagnosis in epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and stroke. In this paper the early development andevaluation of a prototype designed to monitor movements and heart rate is described. An iterative developmentprocess and evaluation of an upper body garment with integrated sensors included: identification of user needs,specification of technical and garment requirements, garment development and production as well as evaluation ofgarment design, functionality and usability. The project is a multidisciplinary collaboration with experts frommedical, engineering, textile, and material science within the wearITmed consortium. The work was organized inregular meetings, task groups and hands-on workshops. User needs were identified using results from a mixedmethodssystematic review, a focus group study and expert groups. Usability was evaluated in 19 individuals(13 controls, 6 patients with Parkinson’s disease) using semi-structured interviews and qualitative contentanalysis.
Results: The garment was well accepted by the users regarding design and comfort, although the users werecautious about the technology and suggested improvements. All electronic components passed a washabilitytest. The most robust data was obtained from accelerometer and gyroscope sensors while the electrodes forheart rate registration were sensitive to motion artefacts. The algorithm development within the wearITmedconsortium has shown promising results.
Conclusions: The prototype was accepted by the users. Technical improvements are needed, but preliminarydata indicate that the garment has potential to be used as a tool for diagnosis and treatment selection andcould provide added value for monitoring seizures in epilepsy, fluctuations in PD and activity levels in stroke.Future work aims to improve the prototype further, develop algorithms, and evaluate the functionality andusability in targeted patient groups. The potential of incorporating blood pressure and heart-rate variabilitymonitoring will also be explored.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2019. Vol. 1, no 3
Keywords [en]
Wearable Technology, Ambulatory monitoring, Neurological disorders, Biomedical Engineering, Smart textiles
National Category
Neurology
Research subject
Textiles and Fashion (General)
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hb:diva-23834DOI: 10.1186/s42490-019-0002-3OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hb-23834DiVA, id: diva2:1468969
Projects
MedTech WestSmart textiles
Funder
Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research , SBE13–00862020-09-182020-09-182020-09-21Bibliographically approved