Integrating technologies to design
better healthcare interventions
A
ge and disease demographics
are changing rapidly across
the globe. The number of
people above 65 years is
expected to double and constitute nearly
17% of the world population by 2050. The
chronic disease incidence rate is expected
to rise to 57% by 2020. These figures
highlight the need to enhance quality
and efficiency of care with quick response
time to health-related emergencies.
Ideas that cut across medicine, biological
and engineering sciences, material
design, and system innovations are
converging to address these challenges.
The shift is going to be from legacy
products like pacemaker and imaging
systems to wearables for general fitness
tracking and gait monitoring. Taking
a step further, researchers are now
developing and testing more focused
miniaturized bioelectronic devices for
By Dr. Swati Subodh
38
Volume 4 | Issue 1 | January-March 2019
recording and analysing health data for
detecting determinants of health and
for medical interventions.
In
diagnostics,
non-invasive
bioelectronic skin sensors that measure
analytes in biofluids like saliva, tears and
sweat are showing promising results in
assessing stress levels, and detecting
conditions like diabetes and cystic
fibrosis. Researchers from the All India
Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)
and Indian Institute of Technology
(IIT) Delhi have developed a biosensor
for detecting glucose in saliva samples
for diabetes detection. The results
can directly be viewed on the user’s
smartphone.Many such studies are now
underway in India.
Conductive gels and patch sensors
resembling fashion accessories are also
being developed to record cardiac,
brain and muscle activity which could
complement the traditional blood
analysis and clinical examinations.
Mechano-acoustic skin sensors that
measure speech patterns and internal
body sounds, like swallowing, are being
explored to quantitatively measure
impact of rehabilitation in patients,
such as those recovering from stroke.
In treatment, miniscule implants placed
inside the body can cross the blood-
brain barrier and deliver drug directly
at the target site, even in hard-to-reach
internal organs. Such devices have shown
promising results in laboratory settings
in reducing side effects and toxicity while
increasing overall drug efficacy. This could
also ensure patient compliance, a step
further to the recently approved digital
pill, especially in patients on long care and
those with compromised cognition.
Certain implants can also electrically