Smart patch that measures sweat in athletes could be used on coronavirus patients to predict when cases become life-threatening
- A smart patch developed with Gatorade may help monitor coronavirus patients
- The patch measures sweat, but could look for biomarkers of the virus
- It could determine if the patient’s cytokine levels increase or if they have a fever
- The patch could be placed in masks to monitor the health of hospital workers
- Learn more about how to help people impacted by COVID
A smart patch used to measure sweat components in athletes may play a role in monitoring patients with coronavirus.
The patches, called Gx, were developed in partnership with Gatorade, but its creators believe it can be used in the response to the pandemic.
The technology is capable of monitoring fatigue and cytokine and electrolyte levels, providing healthcare workers with information to determine if a case could become life-threatening.
The device could also be built into an N95 mask, allowing it to track the health of medical staff who are working on the front lines of the outbreak.
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The patch was developed by Epicore Biosystems, which stems from a researcher group at Northwestern University.
The patch is a flexible, stretchable design equip with a network of microfluid channels, according to Spectrum IEEE.
The technology takes sweat samples of the wearer, which travel through different chambers with an assortment of chemicals that allows it to analyze the fluid.
The version developed with Gatorade, which is set to be released sometime this year, measures sweat amount, along with sodium chloride concentration.
A companion app uses an image processing algorithm that looks for color changes in the sweat and shares steps for the wearer to re-hydrate.
Epicore CEO and co-founder Roozbeh Ghaffari told IEEE: ‘We have deployed these waterproof patches in clinical studies and explored passive modes of sweat induction.’
‘For example, [a user can wear a patch] in the shower; the heat generated induces a sufficient amount of sweat for the patch to gather.’
Now that the coronavirus is spreading across the globe, Ghaffari and his team are studying how the patch can be used in other ways.
The patch could detect if the person has a fever, by monitoring night sweats or cytokine levels that increase when they are released by the immune system – suggest it is trying to fight an infection.
Ghaffari told DigitalTrends that they are in ‘early stages of applying our patch technology to help with the current coronavirus pandemic.’
He noted that the patch could also be used for healthcare workers.
It could be placed inside a N95 mask to track their respiration rate, temperature, and moisture – and ‘Epicore is currently working with partners yet to be announced to fast-track that project’, IEEE wrote.