A new stick-on wearable sensor uses the symphony of internal rumblings, whooshing, gurglings, and cracklings to help doctors diagnose different conditions. And this souped-up, miniaturized stethoscope could one day be a way for clinicians to continuously monitor patients outside of the clinic. So far it’s been tested on chicken breasts and a very small group of people.
It sticks to the skin like a temporary tattoo
This wearable, smaller than a penny, can hear the beat of your heart, the sound of your voice, and even the whirr of an implantable heart pump, according to a paper published today in the journal Science Advances.
It sticks to the skin like a temporary tattoo. Inside the device, there’s an extremely sensitive accelerometer that can pick up the motion of sound waves as they travel through the flesh and fluids of the body. An electrode measures the electrical signals that nerves send to muscles to tell them to squeeze. These components lie sandwiched between layers of silicone and elastic that at their thickest point are only about two millimeters tall — about the thickness of your driver’s license stacked on top of your credit card. Right now, the device communicates with a computer via a wire, but the team is working on adding Bluetooth to connect it to a smartphone.
The device isn’t commercially available yet, but its potential applications include letting doctors monitor heart patients from afar, or listen for snoring during sleep studies. Because the wearable can also measure throat vibrations when a person is talking, the researchers are also planning trials that incorporate the wearable into speech therapy. Athletes or patients in physical therapy could use it to monitor blood flow and muscle contractions.