Health and long-term care is a growth area for wearable heath monitoring systems. Wearable diagnostic and therapeutic systems can contribute to timely point-of-care (POC) for patients with chronic health conditions, especially chronic neurological disorders, cardiovascular diseases and strokes that are leading causes of mortality worldwide. Diagnostics and therapeutics for patients under timely POC can save thousands of lives. However, lack of access to minimally intrusive monitoring systems makes timely diagnosis difficult and sometimes impossible. Existing ambulatory recording equipment is incapable of performing continuous remote patient monitoring (RPM) because of the inability for conventional silver-silver-chloride-gel-electrodes to perform long-term monitoring, non-reusability, lack of scalable-standardized wireless communication platforms, and user-friendly design. Recent progress in nanotextile biosensors and mobile platforms has resulted in novel wearable health monitoring systems for neurological and cardiovascular disorders. This chapter discusses nanostructured-textile-based dry electrodes that are better suited for long-term measurement of electrocardiography (ECG), electroencephalography (EEG), electrooculography (EOG), electromyography (EMG), and bioimpedance with very low baseline noise, improved sensitivity, and seamless integration into garments of daily use. It discusses bioelectromagnetic principles of origination and propagation of bioelectric signals and nanosensor functioning, which provide a unique perspective on the development of novel wearable systems that harness their potential. Combined with state-of-the-art embedded wireless network devices and printable fractal antenna to communicate with smartphone, laptop, or directly to remote server through mobile network (GSM, 4G-LTE, GPRS), they can function as wearable wireless health diagnostic systems that are more intuitive to use.

Chapter Contents:

• 9.1 Introduction
• 9.2 Smart textile for health monitoring
• 9.3 Electrical signals from the brain and heart
• 9.4 Cardiovascular anatomy and electrophysiology
• 9.4.1 The dipole theory for ECG
• 9.4.2 Derivation of ECG from dipole vector
• 9.5 Monitoring and diagnosis: neurological signal measurements
• 9.6 Monitoring and diagnosis: cardiological signal measurements of diagnostic value
• 9.7 Monitoring systems
• 9.8 Neurological disorder monitoring by wearable wireless nano-bio-textile sensors
• 9.9 Cardiovascular health monitoring
• 9.9.1 Hardware system
• 9.9.2 ECG signal acquisition
• 9.10 Biofeedback system for therapeutics
• 9.11 Conclusion
• References

Inspec keywords: cellular radio; packet radio networks; diseases; Long Term Evolution; laptop computers; cardiovascular system; electroencephalography; nanosensors; medical disorders; body sensor networks; 4G mobile communication; health care; smart phones; fractal antennas; nanomedicine; patient monitoring; electromyography; biomedical electrodes; electro-oculography; wearable antennas; electrocardiography; nanostructured materials

Other keywords: bioelectromagnetic principles; EEG; nanosensor functioning; wearable health monitoring systems; continuous remote patient monitoring; EMG; EOG; electrooculography; strokes; cardiovascular disorders; low baseline noise; minimally intrusive monitoring systems; embedded wireless network devices; long-term monitoring; wearable technology; GSM; user-friendly design; cardiovascular diseases; electroencephalography; conventional silver-silver-chloride-gel-electrodes; 4G-LTE; chronic health conditions; bioimpedance; health care; mobile platform; printable fractal antenna; scalable-standardized wireless communication platforms; wearable wireless health diagnostic systems; point-of-care; ECG; long-term measurement; bioelectric signals; growth area; electrocardiography; remote server; mobile network; electromyography; human health monitoring; timely POC; wearable antennas; long-term care; nanostructured-textile-based dry electrodes; therapeutic systems; laptop; chronic neurological disorders; smartphone; patient therapeutics; GPRS

Subjects: Microsensors and nanosensors; Single antennas; Biomedical communication; Physiology of the eye; nerve structure and function; Electrodiagnostics and other electrical measurement techniques; Nanotechnology applications in biomedicine; Bioelectric signals; Sensing and detecting devices; Biology and medical computing; Mobile radio systems; Electrical activity in neurophysiological processes; Wireless sensor networks