The technology offers numerous benefits, especially for monitoring chronic and acute health conditions. "This technology can provide real-time information about both chronic and acute health conditions, allowing caregivers to act more quickly and with greater certainty when they see trouble," says Leyla Soleymani, a professor of Engineering Physics at McMaster University.
The patch can be used to monitor a variety of biomarkers, from diabetes to cardiac conditions. "The Wearable Aptalyzer is a general platform, meaning it can measure any biomarkers of interest, ranging from diabetes to cardiac biomarkers," says Mahla Poudineh, an assistant professor and director of the IDEATION Lab at the University of Waterloo. Continuous health monitoring helps not only to catch diseases early and track how treatments are working but also to improve our understanding of disease processes.
The patch is applied and removed like a small bandage with barely visible, soft hooks, making it particularly appealing to diabetics and others who currently use blood samples or more invasive monitoring patches. The greatest promise of the technology lies in its ability to produce weeks' worth of meaningful results and transmit data to electronic devices for expert analysis without sophisticated equipment.
