Wearable technology, or ‘wearables,’ has been gaining a lot of traction, both in terms of development and usage.
These electronic devices are designed to be worn as accessories on the user’s body. They can even be implanted or embedded in clothing. In fact, as we shared, researchers recently achieved a breakthrough in wearable technology, enabling the creation of textiles that respond to movement and temperature. How exciting is that!
But how do wearables achieve that? Well, they are equipped with sensors to collect data related to user health, fitness, and environmental conditions. Processors, meanwhile, allow them to handle computations and perform their intended tasks.
These devices are further designed to communicate with other devices through wireless technologies, allowing them to synchronize data and access additional features through an app.
Wearable technology has several use cases, such as navigation, interactive gaming, improving efficiency, and enabling contactless payments, among others, to enhance overall user experiences.
A critical real-life application of wearables that we are going to focus on today is medicine and healthcare. Wearable healthcare devices actually fall into two broad categories: consumer-grade wearables and medical-grade wearables.
Consumer-grade wearables such as watches, clothing, and rings enable users to monitor their health and fitness by keeping track of metrics like steps taken, calories burned, heart rate, oxygen levels, and sleep patterns. Having real-time access to valuable data allows users to take better care of themselves.
Medical-grade wearables, meanwhile, include blood pressure monitors, ECG monitors, biosensors, and glucose monitors, which are becoming popular for providing users with valuable data to manage chronic diseases. By giving patients the ability to collect and access their own health data and then report it, this technology eliminates the need for in-person appointments.
These devices also offer healthcare professionals actionable insights in real-time, which are also remotely available, and help them provide more personalized treatments. Interestingly, we might soon even be able to use our plain-ol smartphones as glucometers.
Given the vast benefits of wearable technology, there is booming demand for smart wearable health devices, which are projected to be worth $70 billion in the next four years.
Consumer-grade wearables account for the largest share of wearables due to their increased availability and accessibility and, of course, the wide availability of smartphones that allow for easy data management. Medical-grade wearables, meanwhile, have to go through clinical research and receive clearance from relevant government agencies to collect data for clinical decision-making.
Wearable Ultrasound Innovation Revolutionizing Healthcare
Amidst all this excitement and development surrounding wearables, researchers have come up with a wearable ultrasound device that performs wireless monitoring of muscle activity. This new tech has potential applications in healthcare and human-machine interfaces.
Wearable electromyography (EMG) devices are already able to identify muscular activity to monitor health and track body motion. However, this approach is rather limited due to EMG signals having low spatial resolution, stability, and signal-to-noise ratio.
EMG signals from multiple muscle fibers also tend to get mixed, making it difficult to isolate the contributions of the specific muscle fiber.
Not to mention, they are intrinsically weak during normal muscle activity. To compensate for this, large electrodes need to be applied to the skin in order to record electrical muscle activity, which reduces the spatial resolution.
A promising alternative to this clinical standard is echomyography (EcMG), which can detect muscle movement using ultrasound waves. Ultrasound, after all, penetrates deep tissues to provide high-resolution imaging, offering detailed insights into muscle function.
While it is safe, versatile, and accessible, the problem with EcMG is that it relies on bulky and complex transducer arrays. They not only limit user mobility but also have high power consumption.
So, engineers at the University of California San Diego, with support from the National Institutes of Health, developed a fully integrated wearable echomyography system.
Sheng Xu, a professor and Jacobs Faculty Scholar in the Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and NanoEngineering at UC San Diego, who led this study, has previously reported such ultrasound patches.
Last year, the team reported achieving wireless capability in this patch. The key element of that study was its ultrasound circuit design.
In this previous device, the team replaced the flexible cable connected to the ultrasound probe and used it for data transmission and power.
“(This circuit) can pre-process and wirelessly transmit the ultrasound data to a back-end station for further analysis.”
– Xu said at the time
The focus of the study last time was on cardiovascular health, and the machine learning algorithm automatically processed the signals and continuously tracked the carotid artery, allowing the team to get ultrasound information even when the patch wearer was moving.
“This automatic tracking algorithm provides unprecedented opportunities for medical ultrasonography and exercise physiology.”
– Muyang Lin, the lead author and a Ph.D. candidate in the Xu Laboratory
The team cross-validated their AI model among ten healthy subjects from three different racial groups, and the next step involved validating the patch in a larger population. According to Lin:
“With this kind of device, we hope to blur the boundary between at-home care and in-hospital diagnosis. We foresee a future where diagnoses can occur anytime and anywhere, enabled by wireless devices like these.”
While the patch was evaluated for monitoring cardiovascular functions, it could also be applied to the abdomen and limbs for the diaphragm and peripheral artery monitoring, respectively, which were targeted in the latest study. A few months ago, Xinyi Yang from Xu’s lab demonstrated that the wearable ultrasound patch can further be comfortably worn on the temple to provide 3D data on cerebral blood flow.
Unlocking the Potential of Human-Machine Interaction
Now, the main innovation of the latest research was using the single ultrasound transducer to sense deep issues more effectively.
The soft ultrasound patch here is enclosed in a flexible silicone elastomer casing and involves three main elements—a single transducer to send and receive ultrasound waves, a customized wireless circuit for data processing and controlling the transducer, and an on-board lithium-polymer battery for powering the system for at least three hours.
The single ultrasound transducer, which is the main innovation, emits ultrasound waves of controlled intensity and captures radiofrequency signals carrying information. This allows for clinical applications like measuring diaphragm thickness.
The device uses these signals to achieve high spatial resolution, which is important in isolating specific muscle movements. A customized deep-learning algorithm, meanwhile, helped researchers extract additional insights from these signals.
The AI algorithm maps the signals to their corresponding muscle distributions, thus allowing for precise detection of particular movements from the collected signals.
The battery-powered device can be attached to the skin with a layer of adhesive for accurate long-term wireless monitoring of muscles.
“This technology could potentially be worn by individuals during their daily routines for continuous, long-term monitoring.”
– Co-author Xiangjun Chen, a Ph.D candidate in the Materials Science and Engineering program at UC San Diego
To demonstrate what it can achieve, the team used its device to detect diaphragm activity, which allows the recognition of different breathing modes. They found that their wearable single-transducer echomyography system can actually track and detect different breathing patterns by tracking diaphragm activity with sub-millimeter resolution.
During the device testing, it was worn over the rib cage to monitor the thickness and motion of the diaphragm, which helps assess respiratory health.
Thickness is used to evaluate diaphragm dysfunction and predict outcomes in ventilated patients. By analyzing muscle motion, different breathing patterns can be detected, which can aid in diagnosing conditions related to breathing irregularities, like pneumonia, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
In a small group trial, the device successfully distinguished between the breathing patterns of healthy individuals and those with COPD, showcasing the device’s potential in respiratory care.
“By tracking diaphragm activity, the technology could potentially support patients with respiratory conditions and those reliant on mechanical ventilation.”
– The study co-author Joseph Wang, a professor in the Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering
The device was then used on the forearm to detect hand and wrist muscle activity. It was found to successfully recognize hand gestures from the single-channel radiofrequency ultrasound signals that are detected from forearm muscles.
The customized deep learning algorithm allowed the team to detect various hand gestures more accurately just from ultrasound signals. A total of 13 hand joints were reported to be recognized with a mean error of only 7.9°.
This movement detection involved ten finger joints and three wrist rotation angles, which shows that the system can capture even slight finger and wrist movements with high sensitivity. And this particular test demonstrates the potential of the device’s usage as a human-machine interface to play a virtual game or control a robotic arm.
According to study co-author Wentong Yue, a Ph.D. candidate in the same department of the UC San Diego:
“These demonstrations underscore the technology’s potential for prosthetics, gaming, and other human-machine interface applications.”
Now, in the next steps, researchers will aim to further enhance the energy efficiency, portability, accuracy, and computational capabilities of the technology.
The Rise of Wearable Ultrasounds Unlocking the Future of Medicine
Wearable ultrasound is a medical breakthrough that can revolutionize health care. However, this advancement has been going on for some time now. Over the years, scientists have tackled various challenges and developed different wearable ultrasounds for better remote monitoring of a patient’s critical physiological functions.
Source: Wiley Online Library
Earlier this year, researchers discovered a liquid metal to overcome the problem of acoustic impedance with ultrasound systems that rely on transducers. Usually, this problem is tackled with the help of matching layers, but most materials used for this have been too rigid for wearable devices.
To design a more conforming but functional matching layer, the researchers used various sizes and volumes of gallium-based droplets in soft silicone. By saturating silicone with about 70% of the droplets, the matching layer’s resulting density improved its acoustic impedance by over 400%. When strained, much like what the matching layer may endure as part of a wearable device, the impedance declined by only 13%.
The team then integrated its stretchable matching layer into a wearable ultrasound prototype, which successfully registered the simulated movement, demonstrating its potential as a diagnostic device.
A couple of years ago, an NIH-funded research team led by Dr. Xuanhe Zhao at MIT also developed a wearable ultrasound patch, the size of a thick postage stamp, that adheres to skin in both dry and wet environments.
When tested, the patch was found to be worn comfortably for at least 48 hours and was able to provide continuous imaging of muscle, blood vessels, heart, diaphragm, lung, or stomach. However, the patch had to be hooked to computer systems for intensive data processing. However, as we have seen, the latest advancement has focused on removing these limitations while making the system more effective.
“We envision a few patches adhered to different locations on the body, and the patches would communicate with your cellphone, where AI algorithms would analyze the images on demand.”
– Zhao said at the time
This is now starting to become a reality, with Scottish health tech company Novosound securing a patent for its wearable ultrasound earlier this year. The device, which constantly monitors the patient’s blood flow and pressure, is strapped onto the body to produce images on mobile devices.
“This allows us to integrate and license the technology with smartwatch partners, looking deeper into the body and enhancing the measurements their optical and electrical sensors provide, opening up the holy grail of 24/7 blood pressure monitoring on the wrist.”
– Novosound CEO and co-founder Dr. Dave Hughes
The patent not only gives the company exclusive rights to sell the tech and pilot projects with major institutions but also engages in R&D contracts for consumer digital health applications. Novosound has already partnered with the Texas Medical Center to develop use cases for its ultrasound wearables.
Relevant Companies in the Healthcare Wearables
Wearable tech is a growing sector that has captured the interest of tech giants like Apple (AAPL +2.14%), which has been exploring health-related applications through its consumer-grade wearable Apple Watch.
We will, however, focus on companies that are actively involved in the medical field, so here are two prominent names that can potentially benefit from innovations like wearable ultrasound.
1. Medtronic (MDT -2.21%)
A global leader in medical devices, Medtronic Public Limited Company, provides wide-ranging healthcare technology solutions and is exploring wearables for diagnostics and health monitoring, including remote solutions.
In 2022, Medtronic partnered with BioIntelliSense for its BioButton wearable that measures as many as 1,440 vital sign measurements per day, including heart rate at rest, skin temperature, and respiratory rate at rest. This year, the company is focused on AI, asking every department to come up with ideas to use the technology to boost productivity.
With a market cap of $115.56 billion, Medtronic shares are currently trading at $90.11, up 9.38% this year. With that, the company has an EPS (TTM) of 2.97 and a P/E (TTM) of 30.31 while paying a dividend yield of 3.11%.
Medtronic plc (MDT -2.21%)
For its first quarter of fiscal year 2025, ending July 26, 2024, Medtronic reported a revenue of $7.9 billion, an increase of 2.8%. “Our underlying markets are healthy, we’re driving operating rigor, and new product innovation is fueling diversified growth across key health tech markets,” said CEO Geoff Martha.
During this quarter, revenue for its Cardiovascular Portfolio jumped 5.5% to $3 billion, the Neuroscience Portfolio’s revenue increased by 4.4% to $2.3 billion, and the diabetes segment surged 11.8% to $647 million, while the Medical Surgical Portfolio’s revenue decreased by 0.4% to $1.996 billion.
2. GE HealthCare Technologies (GEHC +1.79%)
This one is a medical technology company that offers innovative ultrasound solutions in addition to imaging, Pharmaceutical Diagnostics (PDx), and Patient Care Solutions (PCS). Given its focus on ultrasound solutions, GE Healthcare can potentially integrate wearable advancements for diagnostic imaging.
This year, the company is collaborating with Biofourmis to extend the reach of patient monitoring tech to their homes. Biofourmis is a virtual specialty care platform that combines AI algorithms to offer tools to help monitor acute and post-acute patients remotely.
A couple of years ago, GE Healthcare also rolled out wireless, portable sensors for patients to wear during their hospital stay, allowing clinicians to keep track of their vital signs without having to conduct regular check-ins.
GE HealthCare Technologies Inc. (GEHC +1.79%)
With a market cap of $39.64 billion, GE HealthCare shares are currently trading at $86.78.11, up 12.23% this year. With that, the company has an EPS (TTM) of 3.65 and a P/E (TTM) of 23.77 while paying a dividend yield of 0.14%.
For Q3 of 2024, GE HealthCare reported a revenue of $4.9 billion, an increase of 1% year-over-year, while noting that its positive revenue growth in the US was offset by continued market softness in China. Its net income was $470 million, and cash flow from operating activities was $742 million, while $651 million was free cash flow.
“Ongoing lean initiatives across the organization are delivering better value to patients and customers and have resulted in robust margin expansion.”
– CEO Peter Arduini
Conclusion
In healthcare, ultrasound plays a key role, allowing clinicians to see inside our bodies to diagnose disease and monitor health. Hence, researchers are interested in incorporating this noninvasive technique in wearable devices.
As we saw with the latest research, the versatile wearable ultrasound patch can deliver high-resolution imaging of internal tissues on the go for diverse clinical and diagnostic applications, ushering in a new era of personalized healthcare.
Overall, wearables are the future of healthcare, though concerns surrounding the accuracy and reliability of sensors and battery life must be tackled, and better access to analytics tools should be provided to reap the technology’s full benefits!
Click here for a list of top wearable health tracking companies.