Wearable health monitoring systems are considered as the next generation of personal portable devices for telemedicine practice. These systems are based on monitoring different kinds of biological signals released by human beings through saliva, urine, breathing and epidemic skin perspiration. However, the development and commercialization of wearable healthcare equipment is still at a relatively slow pace, because the construction method of ordinary semiconductor equipment is no longer applicable. Despite these challenges, advances in materials science, chemical analysis techniques, equipment design and manufacturing methods have laid the foundation for a completely different wearable technology, which has led to the continuous evolution of wearable systems over the years. Hence, a comprehensive review in this field is required for the rational design and development of wearable systems for healthcare applications. In this regard, we like to summarize all the major components in wearable healthcare systems and discuss the progress made in this field, as well as the challenges that lie ahead. We think that this review will have a great implication for the wider scientific community which will contribute to the rational design of human health monitoring devices and accelerate the development of flexible electronics.

Reviews of wearable healthcare systems: Materials, devices and system integration

In recent years, the Internet of Things (IoT) has gained convincing research ground as a new research topic in a wide variety of academic and industrial disciplines, especially in healthcare. The IoT revolution is reshaping modern healthcare systems by incorporating technological, economic, and social prospects. It is evolving healthcare systems from conventional to more personalized healthcare systems through which patients can be diagnosed, treated, and monitored more easily. The current global challenge of the pandemic caused by the novel severe respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 presents the greatest global public health crisis since the pandemic influenza outbreak of 1918. At the time this paper was written, the number of diagnosed COVID-19 cases around the world had reached more than 31 million. Since the pandemic started, there has been a rapid effort in different research communities to exploit a wide variety of technologies to combat this worldwide threat, and IoT technology is one of the pioneers in this area. In the context of COVID-19, IoT-enabled/linked devices/applications are utilized to lower the possible spread of COVID-19 to others by early diagnosis, monitoring patients, and practicing defined protocols after patient recovery. This paper surveys the role of IoT-based technologies in COVID-19 and reviews the state-of-the-art architectures, platforms, applications, and industrial IoT-based solutions combating COVID-19 in three main phases, including early diagnosis, quarantine time, and after recovery.

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Internet of Things for Current COVID-19 and Future Pandemics: an Exploratory Study.

Background: With the rise of mobile medicine, the development of new technologies such as smart sensing, and the popularization of personalized health concepts, the field of smart wearable devices has developed rapidly in recent years. Among them, medical wearable devices have become one of the most promising fields. These intelligent devices not only assist people in pursuing a healthier lifestyle but also provide a constant stream of health care data for disease diagnosis and treatment by actively recording physiological parameters and tracking metabolic status. Therefore, wearable medical devices have the potential to become a mainstay of the future mobile medical market.
Objective: Although previous reviews have discussed consumer trends in wearable electronics and the application of wearable technology in recreational and sporting activities, data on broad clinical usefulness are lacking. We aimed to review the current application of wearable devices in health care while highlighting shortcomings for further research. In addition to daily health and safety monitoring, the focus of our work was mainly on the use of wearable devices in clinical practice.
Methods: We conducted a narrative review of the use of wearable devices in health care settings by searching papers in PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, and the Cochrane Library published since October 2015. Potentially relevant papers were then compared to determine their relevance and reviewed independently for inclusion.
Results: A total of 82 relevant papers drawn from 960 papers on the subject of wearable devices in health care settings were qualitatively analyzed, and the information was synthesized. Our review shows that the wearable medical devices developed so far have been designed for use on all parts of the human body, including the head, limbs, and torso. These devices can be classified into 4 application areas: (1) health and safety monitoring, (2) chronic disease management, (3) disease diagnosis and treatment, and (4) rehabilitation. However, the wearable medical device industry currently faces several important limitations that prevent further use of wearable technology in medical practice, such as difficulties in achieving user-friendly solutions, security and privacy concerns, the lack of industry standards, and various technical bottlenecks.
Conclusions: We predict that with the development of science and technology and the popularization of personalized health concepts, wearable devices will play a greater role in the field of health care and become better integrated into people’s daily lives. However, more research is needed to explore further applications of wearable devices in the medical field. We hope that this review can provide a useful reference for the development of wearable medical devices.

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Wearable Health Devices in Health Care: Narrative Systematic Review

Wearable and implantable electronics (WIEs) are more and more important and attractive to the public, and they have had positive influences on all aspects of our lives. As a bridge between wearable electronics and their surrounding environment and users, sensors are core components of WIEs and determine the implementation of their many functions. Although the existing sensor technology has evolved to a very advanced level with the rapid progress of advanced materials and nanotechnology, most of them still need external power supply, like batteries, which could cause problems that are difficult to track, recycle, and miniaturize, as well as possible environmental pollution and health hazards. In the past decades, based upon piezoelectric, pyroelectric, and triboelectric effect, various kinds of nanogenerators (NGs) were proposed which are capable of responding to a variety of mechanical movements, such as breeze, body drive, muscle stretch, sound/ultrasound, noise, mechanical vibration, and blood flow, and they had been widely used as self-powered sensors and micro-nanoenergy and blue energy harvesters. This review focuses on the applications of self-powered generators as implantable and wearable sensors in health monitoring, biosensor, human-computer interaction, and other fields. The existing problems and future prospects are also discussed.

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Nanogenerator-Based Self-Powered Sensors for Wearable and Implantable Electronics.

Patient-friendly medical diagnostics and treatments have been receiving a great deal of interest due to their rapid and cost-effective health care applications with minimized risk of infection, which has the potential to replace conventional hospital-based medical procedures In particular, the integration of recently developed materials into health care devices allows the rapid development of point-of-care (POC) sensing platforms and implantable devices with special functionalities In this review, the recent advances in biosensors for patient-friendly diagnosis and implantable devices for patient-friendly treatment are discussed Comprehensive analysis of portable and wearable biosensing platforms for patient-friendly health monitoring and disease diagnosis is provided, including topics such as materials selection, device structure and integration, and biomarker detection strategies Moreover, specific challenges related to each biological fluid for wearable biosensor-based POC applications are presented Also, advances in implantable devices, including recent materials development and wireless communication strategies, are discussed Furthermore, various patient-friendly surgical and treatment approaches are reviewed, such as minimally invasive insertion and mounting, in vivo electrical and optical modulations, and post-operation health monitoring Finally, the challenges and future perspectives toward the development of the patient-friendly diagnosis and treatment are provided

From Diagnosis to Treatment: Recent Advances in Patient-Friendly Biosensors and Implantable Devices.

Wearable devices are becoming widespread in a wide range of applications, from healthcare to biomedical monitoring systems, which enable continuous measurement of critical biomarkers for medical diagnostics, physiological health monitoring and evaluation. Especially as the elderly population grows globally, various chronic and acute diseases become increasingly important, and the medical industry is changing dramatically due to the need for point-of-care (POC) diagnosis and real-time monitoring of long-term health conditions. Wearable devices have evolved gradually in the form of accessories, integrated clothing, body attachments and body inserts. Over the past few decades, the tremendous development of electronics, biocompatible materials and nanomaterials has resulted in the development of implantable devices that enable the diagnosis and prognosis through small sensors and biomedical devices, and greatly improve the quality and efficacy of medical services. This article summarizes the wearable devices that have been developed to date, and provides a review of their clinical applications. We will also discuss the technical barriers and challenges in the development of wearable devices, and discuss future prospects on wearable biosensors for prevention, personalized medicine and real-time health monitoring.

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Keunwon Jeong

Papers

Evolution of Wearable Devices with Real-Time Disease Monitoring for Personalized Healthcare