Connor Bain

Project Title: A flexible, wearable interface for mapping the mechanical changes that occur in soft tissues during health changes

During times of ill health, the biological and physical changes which occur within the body have been highly documented. These changes can be monitored via symptom analysis, blood/urine tests, imaging, or by having a clinician perform a palpation (touch) based inspection. Such tests typically require substantial resources to conduct, analyse and relay the results back to the patient, and require attendance to a GP, clinic or hospital. However, it has been shown that the body also changes on a mechanical level during times of ill health; whether it be tissue stiffness or localised blood pressure. These mechanical changes offer a new approach to monitoring patient health changes, by providing a surrogate marker.

This project aims to engineer a flexible sensor that can be attached to the body to map the tissue changes that occur in disease. This feeds into the current need for more remote monitoring capabilities and new approaches to healthcare technologies. The approach to this will include microfabrication, flexible material development and an understanding of the tissue mechanics for interfacing a device with the body. The outcome of this work then has potential for application to a wide array of different applications in health.