Advances in bio-inspired sensing help people lead healthier lives Nichole Oljaca Worldwide Medical Business Development and Marketing Manager Texas Instruments
Semiconductor technology advancements enable new portable and wearable devices for biosensing and monitoring, helping to enhance medical treatment, aid in health maintenance, and promote fitness. Throughout the world, populations are aging, driving the need for increased health care resources. By 2025 more than one person in five throughout the world—approaching two billion people overall—will be over the age of 60, according to United Nations population estimates. Many of these people are in developing countries, where rising standards of living also bring greater demand for health services for the rest of the population. In the United States, recent policy changes have brought millions more people into the increasingly crowded health care system, and globally, the Internet is helping consumers make more informed choices when they need medical attention. These are just a few developments that highlight why more effective health care delivery is needed to reach more people now and in the years to come. To some extent, solving this resource problem
Some factors driving the evolution of electronic monitoring in health and fitness
means having more doctors, nurses, hospitals, pharmaceutical supplies and all the other elements traditionally associated with medical treatment. But even in a traditional hospital
Clinical health
environment, efficiency of resources and equipment need to evolve to meet the demands.
Patient unthethering
And however necessary medical staff and facilities
Health records digitization
may be, there is also a need for more deliberate
Home health and telehealth
personal ownership of health. People must take
Remote monitoring of patients
care of themselves, limiting their need for some professional medical services by keeping fit
Independent elderly living
and healthy. As a society, in North America and
Chronic illness management
throughout the world, we will have to learn to
Fitness
lead healthier lives while we seek new solutions
Preventive health care
for the enormous health care challenges that lie ahead. An important contributor to helping us
Increased healthy lifestyle awareness
meet those challenges in both clinical and home
Increase in obesity-related complications
environments is electronic technology, including advancements such as bio-inspired sensing and health monitoring for use at home and on the go.
Advances in bio-inspired sensing help people lead healthier lives
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Figure 1. IC technology that is used in high-end medical equipments migrates quickly to enable affordable new health and fitness applications.
The migration of IC technology
laboratory apparatus to a compact electronic system used in hospitals everywhere. And it has further
Without integrated circuit (IC) technology
migrated into a wide range of biosensing and bio-
advancements, the effects of more widespread
inspired applications outside the traditional hospital
biosensing and electronic health monitoring could
environment, including sport watches and even
not be felt. In general, it is higher end applications
gaming systems, where heart rate is used to detect
that push IC development to previously unattainable
a player’s emotional state in real time as the game
levels of performance. But performance is only one
difficulty changes.
of the “Three Ps of Innovation” in semiconductors, with power dissipation and price making up the
New ways to keep track of our health
other two. Advancement along each of these three
As this technology migration continues, electronic
vectors creates new market opportunities. High-
systems based on analog and embedded processing
end performance technology quickly matures and is
technologies are making it possible for people to
optimized to make it more highly integrated, smaller
incorporate biosensing and health monitoring into
in scale, and more power efficient. These advances
their lives in entirely new ways. Today, per figure
help the technology quickly move from high-end
2, electronic devices can be worn unobtrusively,
systems to a wider range of uses and applications.
even fashionably, on the wrist, leg, chest or
Meanwhile, the cycle continues as new technology is
elsewhere on the body, or incorporated into portable
again developed for high-performance systems.
electronic accessories that sense personal data.
This migration is happening today in multiple areas
Often these devices communicate wirelessly to
of health technology. For example in figure 1, the
smartphone applications or other central programs,
first practical electrocardiogram (ECG), developed
which process, store and display the information.
around 1903, was an extremely large and immobile
These types of personal and wearable biosensing
machine that required subjects to immerse each of
electronics are a major trend in both the consumer
their limbs into containers of salt solutions from which
and home health industry. Never before has it been
the ECG was recorded. Though the basic principles
so easy to take an interest in and responsibility for
of that era are still in use today, the electronic
your own bodily data through wearable electronics.
instrumentation has evolved from a cumbersome
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August 2014
coverage that spreads through all areas of a patient’s life, providing more preventive, more costeffective treatment. At the same time, inexpensive, convenient monitoring systems will be generally available through retail stores to allow everybody to take an active role in keeping fit and maintaining good health.
Bio-inspired technology extends to new areas Eventually, semiconductor advancements will enable these biosensing and monitoring systems to extend
Figure 2. Semiconductor advancements today are enabling reliable, continuous health monitoring.
to new bio-inspired areas that can help keep people safe and empower them. For instance, similar
Much of this data involves seemingly traditional
technology used in miniaturized ECG monitors will
readings of pulse rate, pulse oxygen levels, blood
enable more commercial uses of electromyography
sugar and other vitals, which help keep people
(EMG) electronics that gauge muscle activity through
conscious of the state of their health. But even with
measuring electrical activity in soft tissue. Electronics
these traditional biosensing applications, wearable
that use EMG technology to monitor muscle
wireless electronics are enabling their use in new
movement enable a wide range of muscle control-
ways. For example, in years past, the diagnosis of
based applications. They can provide the elderly, sick
an irregular heartbeat or certain arrhythmias could
or handicapped with greater capability to perform
be problematic. If the arrhythmia didn’t present
actions such as turning on lights and televisions at a
itself during a hospital ECG, then a doctor would
distance, while the possibilities for motion-controlled
have a difficult time understanding the issue. Today,
video games and simulated training seem all but
event monitors are available and can be worn while
unlimited. Combined with other motion electronics,
participating in normal activity until the symptoms
EMG-based technology can even help decipher the
become evident and can be recorded, a period that
difference between someone’s calf flexing during
often lasts up to two months. Many event monitors
walking versus pushing on a bike pedal.
transmit reports about a heart’s recorded electrical
Another new use of electronics technology comes
activity directly to the doctor. By this means,
from pulse-oximetry electronics. In these electronics,
physicians can extend their attention beyond the
oxygen levels in the blood are measured by shining
clinic, and patients who stay healthy can make
the light of two wavelengths through a patient’s finger
fewer follow-up medical visits.
to a photodiode. The changing oxygen absorbance
As the electronic circuitry used in these types of
at each of the wavelengths is measured, allowing
devices continues to become smaller and less
determination of the absorbance due to the pulsing
power hungry, more and more new uses and
arterial blood alone. The electronics utilized in this
applications will appear. The result will be health
Advances in bio-inspired sensing help people lead healthier lives
type of optical measurement can also be configured
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August 2014
to act as a new type of heart rate monitor. As seen
More futuristic applications can also benefit by this
in figure 3, rather than measuring the blood oxygen
type of advanced bio-inspired electronic technology.
level, the change in arterial volume caused by each
Because blood flow to the skin can be modulated
cardiac cycle is detected by illuminating the skin
by multiple other physiological systems, this same
with a LED and then measuring the amount of light
type of optical approach can also be used to monitor
either transmitted or reflected to a photodiode. Each
breathing and other circulatory conditions. Optical
cardiac cycle appears as a peak, which correlates
sensors incorporated into other systems, such as
to a heartbeat. The use of this type of optical-based,
the steering wheel of a car, will make it possible to
heart-rate-sensing technology can also become
use simple hand contact to gather information about
very widespread. It enables an entirely new market
the driver, such as anxiety level or fatigue, through
of sports and fitness heart rate monitors and
correlation of heart rate or respiration measurements.
accessories that can perform measurement at the
These and other uses of bio-inspired sensing will
wrist or other skin contact and eliminate the need for
steadily introduce health-, fitness- and safety-
uncomfortable chest straps.
consciousness into all areas of our lives.
Figure 3. Cardiac cycles can be detected by illuminating skin with an LED and measuring the amount of light reflected to a photodiode.
Advances in bio-inspired sensing help people lead healthier lives
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August 2014
system where it is available to medical personnel. These core system functions all depend on powermanagement devices that regulate the use and storage of battery power. In some cases, other ICs can be used to regulate the harvesting of energy from the heat or motion of the wearer’s body. Based on these requirements, TI is developing new technologies to enable the next generation of health and fitness applications, including a wide variety of highly integrated AFE devices for designers of bio-inspired and other sensing applications. Additional TI technologies include the broad range of MSP430™ MCUs. Lowpower ZigBee and Bluetooth wireless connectivity solutions, and a leading portfolio of powermanagement devices include selections for harvesting energy from body heat and motion. Another important area of differentiation for bioinspired sensing applications is TI’s advanced
TI solutions help meet system requirements
packaging, with options for wafer-scale chip packaging (WCSP) to allow the thinnest, smallest chip mountings possible in wearable equipment.
Health and fitness electronics must be extremely small, lightweight and slim to make them easy to These electronics also need to operate for a long
Reference designs for health and fitness applications
time without recharging, since even daily charging
The developers of new health and fitness products
can be too often. To meet these requirements,
are often innovators in small companies who
the electronic circuits often need to combine
may have limited expertise in system design,
advanced sensing and signal conditioning into
so IC solutions need to be well supported,
a fully integrated analog front end (AFE) for
flexible and easy to use. TI helps to meet these
system optimization. If additional processing of
developers’ needs through their TIDesigns
the data is required, an extremely low-power
reference design library. Designers can use this
microcontroller (MCU) can store algorithms and
library of comprehensive reference designs to
perform the necessary calculations. Often these
jumpstart system design and speed time to
systems need to communicate wirelessly, so
market by including schematics, block diagrams,
that a smartphone or other device can access
bills of materials (BOMs), design files and test
or display the information and relay it to a central
reports. Spanning TI’s portfolio of analog,
wear or be incorporated into portable accessories.
Advances in bio-inspired sensing help people lead healthier lives
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August 2014
Figure 4. TIDesigns Optical Heart Rate reference design.
embedded processor and connectivity products,
and converts the analog signal to a digital signal,
the reference designs are created by experts
which it then passes along to an MSP430 MCU.
with deep system and product knowledge. A
TI’s TI’s SimpleLink™ Bluetooth low energy
variety of health and fitness application TIDesigns
CC2541 wireless MCU-based module provides
are available that provide complete, end-to-
wireless connection to a smartphone or other
end solutions with AFEs for sensor and signal
local system. Non-volatile ferroelectric random
conditioning, plus an ultra-low-power MCU and
access memory (FRAM) provides data logging
Bluetooth low energy connectivity.
and an accelerometer to sense body movements.
One such TIDesign (TIDA-00011), shown in figure
The reference design also includes devices that
4, showcases a typical optical, wrist-based, heart-
manage power for the battery and various system
rate-system application. This wrist-based heart-
functions. A developer looking to design this type
rate monitor reference design illustrates how TI’s
of end equipment can access everything directly
technologies come together to offer a complete
from TI to get this exact system up and running
solution. Using an LED-to-photodiode light
quickly. From there, the developer only needs
signal, TI’s AFE4400 senses changes in the skin
to add its own intellectual property in order to
surface due to the wearer’s pulse, then amplifies
customize the solution.
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Improved monitoring helps make a healthier world A growing, aging population worldwide. Higher standards of living in developing countries. More sophisticated medical consumers. All of these factors point to the need for new forms of health care that can extend the capabilities of medical personnel and enable ordinary people to look after their health more effectively. Advanced electronic technology is helping us meet these challenges with new bioinspired sensing and monitoring devices that can be worn unobtrusively for treatment and to help us stay aware of our physical condition and fitness. Many of these developments result from years of technology migration from large hospital systems to miniaturized, wearable devices, and the same IC technologies are also being extended to other areas of safety and mobility. TI, a leading supplier of ICs for the full range of medical, health and fitness equipments, brings its wide-ranging expertise to meet the challenges of both high-performance and high-volume applications. As the world searches for new ways to address the increasing demand for medical services, TI is innovating every day to provide the IC technology that will help people live happier, healthier lives.
For more information visit: • TI’s Medical, Health and Fitness webpage: www.ti.com/corp-inn-innmed-wp-lp • TIDesigns Optical Heart Rate reference design: www.ti.com/corp-inn-innmed-wp-tidesigns
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