Cutting-Edge Wearable Medical Devices
Designing Cutting-Edge Wearable Medical Devices As healthcare moves out of hospitals and becomes more integrated with peoples’ lives, medical devices are evolving from portable equipment to wearable devices that are meant to be used continuously for extended periods of time. These new devices present designers with many new challenges. Infusion drug therapy Medical devices that are worn on the body are not new. Most people are familiar with wearable products, such as nicotine patches and motion sickness patches. These devices laid the groundwork for a new generation of electronic products. One member of this new generation is the iontophoresis patch. Iontophoresis uses electrical current to enable the infusion of a drug through the skin. The transdermal drug is ionised, dissolved in an aqueous solution and applied to an electrode in the patch. This specially formulated ionised compound can then be moved through the skin via direct current (DC) (...