| KEYWORD |
Impedance spectroscopy for detecting ions and metabolites on simulated body fluids
keywords IMPEDANCE SPECTROSCOPY, WEARABLE DEVICES
Reference persons SABRINA GRASSINI, LEONARDO IANNUCCI
Research Groups AA - Materials-environment interaction
Thesis type EXPERIMENTAL
Description The possibility to monitor continuously and non-invasively the health status of the elderly using home-based telemedicine is highly demanded to improve active aging and to reduce the number of hospitalizations. Focusing on the most frequent pathological conditions affecting aging adults, lack in the control of water balance represents one of the most significant indicators of critical status as dehydration or heart failure. Among the opportunities offered by new technologies and interdisciplinary research, wearable devices integrating conformable printed sensors could represent a unique tool to enable non-invasive regular monitoring of water balance, avoiding urgent access to the emergency room. Water concentration in skin tissues strongly affects the thermal and electric properties of the skin, thus miniaturized wearable sensors can be employed to locally detect these changes on a small area of skin. In this work, a combination of printed electrodes for skin hydration monitoring with portable low-cost electronics to perform Impedance Spectroscopy measurement is proposed. The possibility to discriminate between different hydration statuses is performed by comparing IS measurements acquired on in vitro models realized using agar samples containing different amounts of water. Results obtained from these preliminary measurements represent a fundamental starting point required for the development of a fully operating device to be tested and employed in a real application scenario.
Required skills Fundamental of electrochemistry
Deadline 01/06/2023
PROPONI LA TUA CANDIDATURA