Wearable sensors for enhanced warfighter protection and performance

Author(s):  
Kenneth J. Loh
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Nieman

Most sports nutrition guidelines are based on group average responses and professional opinion. Precision nutrition for athletes aims to improve the individualization of nutrition practices to optimize long-term performance and health. This is a 2-step process that first involves the acquisition of individual-specific, science-based information using a variety of sources including lifestyle and medical histories, dietary assessment, physiological assessments from the performance lab and wearable sensors, and multiomics data from blood, urine, saliva, and stool samples. The second step consists of the delivery of science-based nutrition advice, behavior change support, and the monitoring of health and performance efficacy and benefits relative to cost. Individuals vary widely in the way they respond to exercise and nutritional interventions, and understanding why this metabolic heterogeneity exists is critical for further advances in precision nutrition. Another major challenge is the development of evidence-based individualized nutrition recommendations that are embraced and efficacious for athletes seeking the most effective enhancement of performance, metabolic recovery, and health. At this time precision sports nutrition is an emerging discipline that will require continued technological and scientific advances before this approach becomes accurate and practical for athletes and fitness enthusiasts at the small group or individual level. The costs and scientific challenges appear formidable, but what is already being achieved today in precision nutrition through multiomics and sensor technology seemed impossible just two decades ago.


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 748
Author(s):  
Atul Sharma ◽  
Mihaela Badea ◽  
Swapnil Tiwari ◽  
Jean Louis Marty

With the increasing prevalence of growing population, aging and chronic diseases continuously rising healthcare costs, the healthcare system is undergoing a vital transformation from the traditional hospital-centered system to an individual-centered system. Since the 20th century, wearable sensors are becoming widespread in healthcare and biomedical monitoring systems, empowering continuous measurement of critical biomarkers for monitoring of the diseased condition and health, medical diagnostics and evaluation in biological fluids like saliva, blood, and sweat. Over the past few decades, the developments have been focused on electrochemical and optical biosensors, along with advances with the non-invasive monitoring of biomarkers, bacteria and hormones, etc. Wearable devices have evolved gradually with a mix of multiplexed biosensing, microfluidic sampling and transport systems integrated with flexible materials and body attachments for improved wearability and simplicity. These wearables hold promise and are capable of a higher understanding of the correlations between analyte concentrations within the blood or non-invasive biofluids and feedback to the patient, which is significantly important in timely diagnosis, treatment, and control of medical conditions. However, cohort validation studies and performance evaluation of wearable biosensors are needed to underpin their clinical acceptance. In the present review, we discuss the importance, features, types of wearables, challenges and applications of wearable devices for biological fluids for the prevention of diseased conditions and real-time monitoring of human health. Herein, we summarize the various wearable devices that are developed for healthcare monitoring and their future potential has been discussed in detail.


2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (10) ◽  
pp. 903-914
Author(s):  
Catherine E. Lang ◽  
Kimberly J. Waddell ◽  
Jessica Barth ◽  
Carey L. Holleran ◽  
Michael J Strube ◽  
...  

Background. Wearable sensors allow for direct measurement of upper limb (UL) performance in daily life. Objective. To map the trajectory of UL performance and its relationships to other factors post-stroke. Methods. Participants (n = 67) with first stroke and UL paresis were assessed at 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 20, and 24 weeks after stroke. Assessments captured UL impairment (Fugl-Meyer), capacity for activity (Action Research Arm Test), and performance of activity in daily life (accelerometer variables of use ratio and hours of paretic limb activity), along with other potential modifying factors. We modeled individual trajectories of change for each measurement level and the moderating effects on UL performance trajectories. Results. Individual trajectories were best fit with a 3-parameter logistic model, capturing the rapid growth early after stroke within the longer data collection period. Plateaus (90% of asymptote) in impairment (bootstrap mean ± SE: 32 ± 4 days post-stroke) preceded those in capacity (41 ± 4 days). Plateau in performance, as measured by the use ratio (24 ± 5 days), tended to precede plateaus in impairment and capacity. Plateau in performance, as measured by hours of paretic activity (41 ± 6 days), occurred at a similar time to that of capacity and slightly lagged impairment. Modifiers of performance trajectories were capacity, concordance, UL rehabilitation, depressive symptomatology, and cognition. Conclusions. Upper limb performance in daily life approached plateau 3 to 6 weeks post-stroke. Individuals with stroke started to achieve a stable pattern of UL use in daily life early, often before neurological impairments and functional capacity started to stabilize.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (16) ◽  
pp. 5606
Author(s):  
Eric Harbour ◽  
Michael Lasshofer ◽  
Matteo Genitrini ◽  
Hermann Schwameder

Breathing pattern (BP) is related to key psychophysiological and performance variables during exercise. Modern wearable sensors and data analysis techniques facilitate BP analysis during running but are lacking crucial validation steps in their deployment. Thus, we sought to evaluate a wearable garment with respiratory inductance plethysmography (RIP) sensors in combination with a custom-built algorithm versus a reference spirometry system to determine its concurrent validity in detecting flow reversals (FR) and BP. Twelve runners completed an incremental running protocol to exhaustion with synchronized spirometry and RIP sensors. An algorithm was developed to filter, segment, and enrich the RIP data for FR and BP estimation. The algorithm successfully identified over 99% of FR with an average time lag of 0.018 s (−0.067,0.104) after the reference system. Breathing rate (BR) estimation had low mean absolute percent error (MAPE = 2.74 [0.00,5.99]), but other BP components had variable accuracy. The proposed system is valid and practically useful for applications of BP assessment in the field, especially when measuring abrupt changes in BR. More studies are needed to improve BP timing estimation and utilize abdominal RIP during running.


2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Vinetti ◽  
◽  
Nicola F Lopomo ◽  
Anna Taboni ◽  
Nazzareno Fagoni ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Seanglidet Yean ◽  
Bu Sung Lee ◽  
Chai Kiat Yeo

Aging causes loss of muscle strength, especially on the lower limbs, resulting in a higher risk of injuries during functional activities. To regain mobility and strength from injuries, physiotherapy prescribes rehabilitation exercise to assist the patients' recovery. In this article, the authors survey the existing work in exercise assessment and state identification which contributes to innovating the biofeedback for patient home guidance. The initial study on a machine-learning-based model is proposed to identify the 4-state motion of rehabilitation exercise using wearable sensors on the lower limbs. The study analyses the impact of the feature extracted from the sensor signals while classifying using the linear kernel of the support vector machine method. The evaluation results show that the method has an average accuracy of 95.83% using the raw sensor signal, which has more impact than the sensor fused Euler and joint angles in the state prediction model. This study will both enable real-time biofeedback and provide complementary support to clinical assessment and performance tracking.


Materials ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 3587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sehyun Park ◽  
Hojoong Kim ◽  
Jong-Hoon Kim ◽  
Woon-Hong Yeo

Recent advances in nanomaterial preparation and printing technologies provide unique opportunities to develop flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) for various healthcare applications. Unlike the costly, multi-step, and error-prone cleanroom-based nano-microfabrication, the printing of nanomaterials offers advantages, including cost-effectiveness, high-throughput, reliability, and scalability. Here, this review summarizes the most up-to-date nanomaterials, methods of nanomaterial printing, and system integrations to fabricate advanced FHE in wearable and implantable applications. Detailed strategies to enhance the resolution, uniformity, flexibility, and durability of nanomaterial printing are summarized. We discuss the sensitivity, functionality, and performance of recently reported printed electronics with application areas in wearable sensors, prosthetics, and health monitoring implantable systems. Collectively, the main contribution of this paper is in the summary of the essential requirements of material properties, mechanisms for printed sensors, and electronics.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (15) ◽  
pp. 5162
Author(s):  
Joana Costa ◽  
Catarina Silva ◽  
Miguel Santos ◽  
Telmo Fernandes ◽  
Sérgio Faria

Intelligent approaches in sports using IoT devices to gather data, attempting to optimize athlete’s training and performance, are cutting edge research. Synergies between recent wearable hardware and wireless communication strategies, together with the advances in intelligent algorithms, which are able to perform online pattern recognition and classification with seamless results, are at the front line of high-performance sports coaching. In this work, an intelligent data analytics system for swimmer performance is proposed. The system includes (i) pre-processing of raw signals; (ii) feature representation of wearable sensors and biosensors; (iii) online recognition of the swimming style and turns; and (iv) post-analysis of the performance for coaching decision support, including stroke counting and average speed. The system is supported by wearable inertial (AHRS) and biosensors (heart rate and pulse oximetry) placed on a swimmer’s body. Radio-frequency links are employed to communicate with the heart rate sensor and the station in the vicinity of the swimming pool, where analytics is carried out. Experiments were carried out in a real training setup, including 10 athletes aged 15 to 17 years. This scenario resulted in a set of circa 8000 samples. The experimental results show that the proposed system for intelligent swimming analytics with wearable sensors effectively yields immediate feedback to coaches and swimmers based on real-time data analysis. The best result was achieved with a Random Forest classifier with a macro-averaged F1 of 95.02%. The benefit of the proposed framework was demonstrated by effectively supporting coaches while monitoring the training of several swimmers.


Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (21) ◽  
pp. 6603
Author(s):  
Bouchaib Zazoum ◽  
Abdel Bachri ◽  
Jamal Nayfeh

Inks printing is an innovative and practicable technology capable of fabricating the next generation of flexible functional systems with various designs and desired architectures. As a result, inks printing is extremely attractive in the development of printed wearables, including wearable sensors, micro supercapacitor (MSC) electrodes, electromagnetic shielding, and thin-film batteries. The discovery of Ti3C2Tx in 2011, a 2D material known as a MXene, which is a compound composed of layered nitrides, carbides, or carbonitrides of transition metals, has attracted significant interest within the research community because of its exceptional physical and chemical properties. MXene has high metallic conductivity of transition metal carbides combined with hydrophilic behavior due to its surface terminated functional groups, all of which make it an excellent candidate for promising inks printing applications. This paper reviews recent progress in the development of 2D MXene inks, including synthesis procedures, inks formulation and performance, and printing methods. Further, the review briefly provides an overview of future guidelines for the study of this new generation of 2D materials.


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