Smart wound patch: Design of an integrated electronic sensor system for continuous wound monitoring

Smart wound patch: Design of an integrated electronic sensor system for continuous wound monitoring

Van Roemburg, S.P.J.

French, P.J. (mentor)

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

Biomedical Engineering

Biomedical Electronics

2015-08-07

Worldwide ca. 20 million patients are suffering from slow- or non-healing wounds. These problematic wounds have a major impact on the mortality risk, quality of life and mobility of patients. Moreover, non-healing wounds are a major financial burden for health care providers. Currently, wound treatments are selected mainly based on visual inspection and experience of the clinician. One approach to improve wound care is the use of monitoring. Continuous wound monitoring can provide objective measurements of the wound status. These measurements can be used to guide the treatment and provide feedback about the treatment effectiveness. Guided treatments will lead to improved wound outcome and shorter wound duration in many problematic wounds. This thesis describes the design of an integrated electronic sensor system for continuous wound monitoring: a smart wound patch. First, the literature and interviews are used to select six parameters from the complex wound healing process as healing performance indicators: matrix metalloproteinase-9, moisture, nitric oxide, pH, temperature and tissue oxygenation. Different sensor technologies are considered for the assessment of these six parameters. A smart wound patch is designed to assess moisture, temperature and tissue oxygenation. The design includes 4 moisture dependent electrode pairs, 3 silicon-based temperature sensors and 2 pulse oximeters. A flexible foil forms the basis of the design which includes NFC and flexible printed batteries. A brief market research indicates a high commercial potential for a smart wound patch. A prototype is build on a PCB and used to test the proposed design. Conductance measurements of gold electrode pairs provide assessment of moisture levels from wet to dry as well as skin moisture levels. Accurate temperature measurements on healthy skin are achieved using silicon-based sensors. Pulse oximetry provides heart rate and an indication of re-vascularisation. Estimation of tissue oxygenation based on blood oxygen saturation requires further research. Continuous wound monitoring with a smart sensor system can revolutionise wound care by providing objective measurements that enable guided wound treatment.

smart sensor system
pulse oximetry
wound
wound monitor
moisture sensor
temperature sensor

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:1e3738ab-fbfd-4218-bfc7-a95fb3f56c41

2018-08-07

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2015 Van Roemburg, S.P.J.