Recent Trends in Fabrication and Applications of Wearable Bioelectronics for Early-Stage Disease Monitoring and Diagnosis

Abstract

Modern technology has offered many ways to use chemical and biosensors effectively in detecting various analytes in environmental, medical, and food samples. Recently, people have started to use wearable devices to track various kinds of information about their health and fitness level. The market of wearable devices in 2015 was $5 billion which showed 25% enhancement over 2014, and it is further expected to grow for the next 5 years. The primary focus of this chapter is to bring the latest developments on nanofabricated wearable devices which integrated on the epidermis, thereby analyzing by a non-invasive and non-obtrusive fashion. We have given more emphasis on the recent developments in the fabrication methodologies toward the chemical and biosensor for physical parameter measurements of heart rate, glucose, temperature, and pressure levels. To prepare wearable devices, nanomaterials such as 2D graphene, 1D carbon nanotubes, conducting polymers, and noble metal nanoparticles have been used as transducers. There are various challenges in recording the real-time measurements on human body during physical movements when there are drastic changes in the temperature, pressure, and humidity of the device, so these parameters have to be taken into account during flexible sensor device manufacturing. There are further developments on wearable devices which can track the health of patients, and also depending on the need, it can release drug into the body in a controlled manner for a timely diagnosis. We have also discussed the need of wearable devices and their use as temperature/motion sensor, respiration rate analyzer, heart rate and blood pressure monitoring, detecting the level of glucose, lactate, pH, etc. In addition, therapeutic applications and future hopes of wearable sensors have been discussed.