Kim, Tae-Ho Kim, a PhD student, and a team in SFU’s Additive Manufacturing Lab, have replaced the traditional blood pressure procedure by replicated the folding mechanisms of the leech in their design of 3D-printable origami sensors.
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“Our origami-inspired dry electrode has unique characteristics such as suction for grasping and foldability inspired by nature,” says Kim, a professor and associate director of SFU’s School of Mechatronic Systems Engineering. “In keeping with nature, we saw that in addition to the complex mechanisms of a leech’s adhesive feature, these creatures have an expandable posterior sucker and body, while its organs expand and shrink appropriately to maintain better adhesion to its victim. Incorporating this point of view, we found that origami can achieve similar motions and also be customized.”
How the Robot Works
The robot’s fingertips should be placed on the patient’s chest. The LIO sensors integrated with the tip monitor the blood pressure and it is estimated by a combination of data from electrocardiogram (ECG) and photoplethysmogram (PPG) readings by sensors on the fingers of each hand of the robot.
The paired sensors can generate the patient’s systolic and diastolic blood pressure using predetermined algorithms. This method is far more effective than the traditional method of using a cuff-based digital sphygmomanometer.
Kim’s previous work included programming sensitive robots to measure other human physiological signals, such as an electrocardiogram (monitoring heart rate), temperature, and respiration rate.
“Robotics offers a promising method to mitigate risk and improve patient care effectiveness and quality as focused remote healthcare technology,” says Kim. Researchers are planning further tests of their new process and developing next-generation sensors, which they hope will lead to its biologically meaningful implementation.
“Blood pressure monitoring is an essential medical diagnostic tool for many chronic diseases and overall good health. The use of sensing robots in medical healthcare systems has substantial advantages because they can assist health care workers in monitoring patient vital signs while creating a friendly environment for those patients who may need to be isolated.”
Kim hopes that robotics can provide a future platform or bridge between medical staff and remote patients with “the potential to play an essential role in the new era of remote healthcare.”
The research is partially supported by a Discovery and Accelerator Supplement Grant, funded by the Natural Sciences and Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
Source: Medindia
