High blood pressure increases the risk of, among other things, stroke, heart attack and kidney disease. Keeping track of your blood pressure is therefore important and an invention from the University of Texas Austin, and Texas A&M in the US, could make it much easier in the future.
A research team at the universities has created a temporary electronic "tattoo" that continuously measures blood pressure. The e-tattoo is actually a self-adhesive sensor that sends small electrical pulses into the skin and then analyzes the result.
The sensor works without the patient having to do anything, which makes it much easier to take thousands of measurements, instead of having to use a traditional blood pressure monitor. The researchers hope that the e-tattoo will make it easier for healthcare professionals to monitor changes in blood pressure of patients continuously instead of just relying on individual samples.
– The sensor in the e-tattoo weighs almost nothing and the patient does not notice it. It sits where you attach it and does not move. You need a sensor that stays in the same place because if it moves, the measurements can change from time to time, says Roozbeh Jafari, professor at the University of Texas A&M and one of the researchers behind the e-tattoo, in a press release.
Because the sensor always measures blood pressure, it is easier to see how the blood pressure changes under genuine conditions. This in turn can lay the foundation for more individual healthcare in the future.
– All of this gathering data can create a digital twin of the body that makes it possible to see how the body can respond to different types of treatments over time, says Deji Akinwande, a professor at the University of Texas Austin and another of the researchers behind the e-tattoo.
Kent Olofsson
