A wearable patch the size of a postage stamp that can monitor blood pressure continuously could soon help people manage their hypertension - a chronic medical condition where the pressure in your blood vessels is persistently elevated. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have developed a wearable ultrasound patch report that has worked well in tests with more than 100 patients. “Wearable devices have so far been limited to sensing signals either on the surface of the skin or right beneath it.
But this is like seeing just the tip of the iceberg,” said Sheng Xu, a professor of nanoengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and the corresponding author of the study. “By integrating ultrasound technology into wearables, we can start to capture a lot of other signals, biological events, and activities going on way below the surface in a non-invasive manner.” “We are adding a third dimension to the sensing range of wearable electronics,” said Xu.
Researchers, who described their work in a paper published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, said the applications include real-time, continuous monitoring of blood pressure changes in patients with heart or lung disease, as well as those who are critically ill or undergoing surgery. The patch uses ultrasound, so it could potentially be used to non-invasively track other vital signs and physiological signals from places deep inside the body. According to experts, it is important.