Patching Patients Featured Pattern: P1173 February 2018
Abstracts in this Pattern:
A number of research groups have made advances in wearable patches that could find use in health care. Temporary-tattoo-like wearable patches are popular patient-monitoring tools because they are often inexpensive, discreet, disposable, and nonintrusive. Scientists from the University of Tokyo (Tokyo, Japan) and other institutions have developed and tested a soft, flexible, temporary-tattoo-style gold-nanomesh sensor patch that a person can wear comfortably for up to a week for medical and athletic applications. A trial in which multiple subjects wore a sensor patch for a week showed that the patch held up mechanically to repeated bending and stretching and was able to measure electrical activity from the wearers' muscles.
Smart wearable patches capable of administering medication are also under development. For example, researchers from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (Lincoln, Nebraska), Harvard Medical School (Harvard University; Cambridge, Massachusetts), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts) have created a smart bandage that comprises "electrically conductive fibers coated in a gel that can be individually loaded with infection-fighting antibiotics, tissue-regenerating growth factors, painkillers or other medications." A person can use a smartphone or other wireless device to trigger a tiny microcontroller in the bandage to send voltage through a specific gel-coated fiber, which heats the gel and releases whatever drug it contains. The researchers see treating the chronic skin wounds that diabetic patients sometimes experience as an initial use for the smart bandage.
Scientists at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, Michigan) have developed a technology capable of printing very precise doses of medication onto a range of surfaces. Furthermore, the technology can print several medications into a single dose on dosing devices such as dissolvable strips and microneedle patches, making medication compliance easier for patients who take multiple medications. Researchers are also developing microneedle patches that can help burn fat. Scientists from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, North Carolina) and other institutions have created a wearable patch that deposits drug-carrying nanoparticles under the skin. The drug the patch deposits "can turn energy-storing white fat into energy-burning brown fat locally while raising the body's overall metabolism."
The Development of this Pattern
Data Points
- SC-2018-01-03-028
Scientists from the University of Tokyo and other institutions have developed and tested a soft, flexible, temporary-tattoo-style gold-nanomesh sensor patch that a person can wear comfortably for up to a week for medical and athletic applications. - SC-2018-01-03-055
Researchers from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Harvard Medical School, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a smart bandage capable of administering medication. - SC-2018-01-03-060
Scientists at the University of Michigan have developed a technology capable of printing very precise doses of medication onto a range of surfaces.
Implications
Patching Patients
Developments in wearable patches for use in a range of health-care applications are ramping up.
Previous Alerts
- SoC431 — Health Care beyond Hospitals and Retail (April 2010)
Beyond retail, health care is moving even closer to consumers and entering home environments. - SoC485 — Better Medicine: Conflicting Approaches (January 2011)
Improving medicine's performance and administration to better patient outcomes appears to follow two—potentially conflicting—roadmaps, and advances occur on both fronts. - SoC565 — Drug Discovery: Efficacy Meets Efficiency (February 2012)
Novel approaches in the pharmaceutical industry offer a wide range of research-and-development alternatives that could result in more efficient and perhaps even shorter time-to-market cycles. - P0418 — The Future of Pharma (November 2012)
Researchers are discovering new tools that may enable pharmaceutical companies to develop next-generation products. - P0611 — Medication in Transition (March 2014)
Advanced methods of administering and distributing medication are emerging; nanotechnology plays a role in many of these new approaches. - SoC762 — Health-Care Devices to Stick On (November 2014)
Efforts to develop stick-on health-care devices are manifold. - P0732 — Cures for Antibiotics (January 2015)
The specter of ineffective antibiotics has haunted practitioners for years; new medical approaches are emerging. - SoC806 — Developments in Drug Delivery (June 2015)
Novel drug-delivery technologies offer a wide range of benefits. - SoC863 — The Right Dose (April 2016)
Modifying the properties of pills is becoming easier. - P0958 — Changing Pharmaceuticals (August 2016)
The pharmaceutical industry is facing changes from inside and outside the industry. - P1000 — Revenue Headwinds for Drugmakers (December 2016)
New contracts, medication types, and manufacturing technologies might reduce pharmaceutical companies' revenue potential. - SoC925 — The Medibots Are Coming (February 2017)
Robots could enable medical procedures that are less invasive and potentially less expensive than current medical applications.