Category: News

 

Objectives: Cardiac disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. If a proper diagnosis is made early, cardiovascular problems can be prevented. The ECG test is a diagnostic method used on the screen for heart disease. Based on a combination of multi-field extraction and nonlinear analysis of ECG data, this paper presents a framework for automated detection of heart disease. The main aim of this study is to develop a model for future diagnosis of cardiac vascular disease using ECG analysis and symptom-based detection.

Methods: Discrete wavelet transform and Nonlinear Vector Decomposed Neural Network methods are used to predict Cardiac disease. Here is the discrete wavelet transform used for preprocessing to remove unwanted noise or artifacts. The neural network was fed with thirteen clinical features as input which was then trained using a non-linear vector decomposition of the presence or absence of heart disease.

Results: The modules were implemented, trained, and tested using UCI and Physio net data repositories. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of this research work are 92.0%, 89.33% and 90.67% CONCLUSIONS: The proposed approach can discover complex non-linear correlations between dependent and independent variables without requiring traditional statistical training. The suggested approach improves ECG classification accuracy, allowing for more accurate cardiac disease diagnosis. The accuracy of ECG categorization in identifying cardiac illness is far greater than these other approaches.

 

Wearable technology is a promising and revolutionary technology that is changing some aspects of our standard of living to a great extent, including health monitoring, sport and fitness, performance tracking, education, and entertainment. This article presents a comprehensive literature review of over 160 articles related to state-of-the-art human wearable technologies. We provide a thorough understanding of the materials, power sources, sensors, and manufacturing processes, and the relationships between these to capture opportunities for enhancement and challenges to overcome in wearables. As a result of our review, we have determined the need for the development of a comprehensive, robust manufacturing system alongside specific standards and regulations that take into account wearables’ unique characteristics. Seeing the whole picture will provide a frame reference and road map for researchers and industries through the design, manufacturing, and commercialisation of effective, portable, self-powered, multi-sensing ultimate future wearable devices and create opportunities for new innovations and applications.

 

With the increasing prevalence of growing population, aging and chronic diseases continuously rising healthcare costs, the healthcare system is undergoing a vital transformation from the traditional hospital-centered system to an individual-centered system. Since the 20th century, wearable sensors are becoming widespread in healthcare and biomedical monitoring systems, empowering continuous measurement of critical biomarkers for monitoring of the diseased condition and health, medical diagnostics and evaluation in biological fluids like saliva, blood, and sweat. Over the past few decades, the developments have been focused on electrochemical and optical biosensors, along with advances with the non-invasive monitoring of biomarkers, bacteria and hormones, etc. Wearable devices have evolved gradually with a mix of multiplexed biosensing, microfluidic sampling and transport systems integrated with flexible materials and body attachments for improved wearability and simplicity. These wearables hold promise and are capable of a higher understanding of the correlations between analyte concentrations within the blood or non-invasive biofluids and feedback to the patient, which is significantly important in timely diagnosis, treatment, and control of medical conditions. However, cohort validation studies and performance evaluation of wearable biosensors are needed to underpin their clinical acceptance. In the present review, we discuss the importance, features, types of wearables, challenges and applications of wearable devices for biological fluids for the prevention of diseased conditions and real-time monitoring of human health. Herein, we summarize the various wearable devices that are developed for healthcare monitoring and their future potential has been discussed in detail.

 

Thin-film microfabrication-based bio-integrated sensors are widely used for a broad range of applications that require continuous measurements of biophysical and biochemical signals from the human body. Typically, they are fabricated using standard photolithography and etching techniques. This traditional method is capable of producing a precise, thin, and flexible bio-integrated sensor system. However, it has several drawbacks, such as the fact that it can only be used to fabricate sensors on a planar surface, it is highly complex requiring specialized high-end facilities and equipment, and it mostly allows only 2D features to be fabricated. Therefore, developing bio-integrated sensors via 3D-printing technology has attracted particular interest. 3D-printing technology offers the possibility to develop sensors on nonplanar substrates, which is beneficial for noninvasive bio-signal sensing, and to directly print on complex 3D nonplanar organ structures. Moreover, this technology introduces a highly flexible and precisely controlled printing process to realize patient-specific sensor systems for ultimate personalized medicine, with the potential of rapid prototyping and mass customization. This review summarizes the latest advancements in 3D-printed bio-integrated systems, including 3D-printing methods and employed printing materials. Furthermore, two widely used 3D-printing techniques are discussed, namely, ex-situ and in-situ fabrication techniques, which can be utilized in different types of applications, including wearable and smart-implantable biosensor systems.

 

The development of new biosensor technologies and their active use as wearable devices have offered mobility and flexibility to conventional western medicine and personal fitness tracking. In the development of biosensors, transducers stand out as the main elements converting the signals sourced from a biological event into a detectable output. Combined with the suitable bio-receptors and the miniaturization of readout electronics, the functionality and design of the transducers play a key role in the construction of wearable devices for personal health control. Ever-growing research and industrial interest in new transducer technologies for point-of-care (POC) and wearable bio-detection have gained tremendous acceleration by the pandemic-induced digital health transformation. In this article, we provide a comprehensive review of transducers for biosensors and their wearable applications that empower users for the active tracking of biomarkers and personal health parameters.

 

Smart electronic devices based on micro-controllers, also referred to as fashion electronics, have raised wearable technology. These devices may process physiological information to facilitate the wearer’s immediate biofeedback in close contact with the body surface. Standard market wearable devices detect observable features as gestures or skin conductivity. In contrast, the technology based on electrochemical biosensors requires a biomarker in close contact with both a biorecognition element and an electrode surface, where electron transfer phenomena occur. The noninvasiveness is pivotal for wearable technology; thus, one of the most common target tissues for real-time monitoring is the skin. Noninvasive biosensors formats may not be available for all analytes, such as several proteins and hormones, especially when devices are installed cutaneously to measure in the sweat. Processes like cutaneous transcytosis, the paracellular cell-cell unions, or even reuptake highly regulate the solutes content of the sweat. This review discusses recent advances on wearable devices based on electrochemical biosensors for biomarkers with a complex blood-to-sweat partition like proteins and some hormones, considering the commented release regulation mechanisms to the sweat. It highlights the challenges of wearable epidermal biosensors (WEBs) design and the possible solutions. Finally, it charts the path of future developments in the WEBs arena in converging/emerging digital technologies.

 

Recent advancements in wearable electrochemical biosensors have opened new avenues for on-body and continuous detection of biomarkers, enabling personalized, real-time, and preventive healthcare. While glucose monitoring has set a precedent for wearable biosensors, the field is rapidly expanding to include a wider range of analytes crucial for disease diagnosis, treatment, and management. In this review, recent key innovations are examined in the design and manufacturing underpinning these biosensing platforms including biorecognition elements, signal transduction methods, electrode and substrate materials, and fabrication techniques. The applications of these biosensors are then highlighted in detecting a variety of biochemical markers, such as small molecules, hormones, drugs, and macromolecules, in biofluids including interstitial fluid, sweat, wound exudate, saliva, and tears. Additionally, the review also covers recent advances in wearable electrochemical biosensing platforms, such as multi-sensory integration, closed-loop control, and power supply. Furthermore, the challenges associated with critical issues are discussed, such as biocompatibility, biofouling, and sensor degradation, and the opportunities in materials science, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence to overcome these limitations.

 

Wearable devices are being developed faster and applied more widely. Wearables have been used to monitor movement-related physiological indices, including heartbeat, movement, and other exercise metrics, for health purposes. People are also paying more attention to mental health issues, such as stress management. Wearable devices can be used to monitor emotional status and provide preliminary diagnoses and guided training functions. The nervous system responds to stress, which directly affects eye movements and sweat secretion. Therefore, the changes in brain potential, eye potential, and cortisol content in sweat could be used to interpret emotional changes, fatigue levels, and physiological and psychological stress. To better assess users, stress-sensing devices can be integrated with applications to improve cognitive function, attention, sports performance, learning ability, and stress release. These application-related wearables can be used in medical diagnosis and treatment, such as for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), traumatic stress syndrome, and insomnia, thus facilitating precision medicine. However, many factors contribute to data errors and incorrect assessments, including the various wearable devices, sensor types, data reception methods, data processing accuracy and algorithms, application reliability and validity, and actual user actions. Therefore, in the future, medical platforms for wearable devices and applications should be developed, and product implementations should be evaluated clinically to confirm product accuracy and perform reliable research.

Objectives: To examine the incidence and survival rates of sudden cardiac arrest that were documented during school organized sports in Japan.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Methods: Insurance claim data of cardiac events (sudden cardiac death and sudden cardiac arrest with resultant disabilities) that occurred during Japanese high school organized sports between 2009 and 2018 were retrieved. Participation data from All Japan High School Athletic Federation and Japan High School Baseball Federation were used for incidence rate calculations. Incidence rate ratios with 95 % confidence interval were calculated to compare the risk by sports and sex. The survival rate was calculated with the proportion of resuscitated cases to total number of cardiac events in this dataset.

Results: A total of 55 cardiac events (25 survivors and 30 deceased) were identified in the dataset. The majority affected male student-athletes (92.7 %). The frequency and incidence rate of cardiac events were highest in male baseball (n = 16 [29.1 %], incidence rate: 0.91 per 100,000 athlete-years). Incidence rate ratio revealed that male basketball (2.19, 95 % confidence interval: 1.04-4.60), male baseball (2.31, 95 % confidence interval: 1.32-4.03), and first-year male baseball (4.11, 95 % confidence interval: 2.10-8.07) had significantly higher risk of cardiac events, compared to the overall incidence rate (0.38 per 100,000 athlete-years). The survival rates were 37.5 % in the first half (2009-2013) and 56.5 % in the latter half (2014-2018) of the study period.

Conclusions: The risk of cardiac events was highest in male, baseball, first-year student-athletes. Rapid AED application by bystanders should be advocated to enhance better survival.

 

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCAs) have high mortality rates, worsened by limited access to automated external defibrillators (AEDs). This study analyzed OHCA response times, identified areas with prolonged ambulance travel times, and proposed optimal AED locations in a medium-sized city in southern Brazil. Data from 278 non-traumatic OHCA cases (2019-2022) in patients over 18 years old, with ambulance response times under 20 min, were included. Spatial survival analysis assessed the probability of exceeding the recommended 5-min (300 s) ambulance response time. The maximal covering location problem identified 100 strategic AED sites within a 150-s reach for bystanders. AED and ambulance travel times were compared using the Wilcoxon test (p < 0.01). Defibrillation occurred in 89 cases (31.01%), and bystander CPR was performed in 149 cases (51.92%). Despite these efforts, 77% of patients died. The median ambulance response time was 11.63 min, exceeding 5 min in most cases, particularly at peak times like 11 a.m. AED placement in selected locations could cover 76% of OHCA occurrences, with a mean AED travel time of 320 s compared to 709 s for ambulances. Strategic AED placement could enhance early defibrillation and improve survival outcomes.