Even though we take it for granted these days, the truth is we are living through a historic era. The kind of luxuries that are there at our disposal today couldn’t have been imagined 50 years ago. Despite having a wide expanse of tools that carry out all sorts of tasks, our focus remains on further improvement as we look to get the most out of a particular tool by making the required adjustments to an existing setup or introducing an extension to it. This wasn’t the case for the generations that came before us. The inventions in those times were sparse and largely staggered across different centuries. Unlike those days, our generation is bestowed with such a thick and fast flow of inventions that it pretty much becomes impossible to keep a track of each one of them. This profusion of advanced tools can be strongly felt within the medical field as well. While there was a time when people would lose their lives due to lack of proper medical equipment, we now have such a refined setup available that we can not only save people, but also enhance the quality of their life. The latter can be achieved through a variety of ways, depending on what’s the most suitable one for your condition.
To assess which one fits the mould for you, medical professionals use monitoring devices. However, as we know, different conditions require different monitoring methods. For satisfying this need, researchers have introduced an innovative and diverse portfolio of devices, with the latest one to the party being e-skin technology.
Developed by researchers at MIT, the latest version of e-skin comfortably beats its predecessors. The main factor behind this is the introduction of sweat ducts. In the previous versions it was observed that the sweat is getting accumulated between e-skin and the natural skin, thus leading to potential skin damage and sensor malfunction. The initial design for this latest version just had regular holes for sweat permeation, but the lack of flexibility forced a change. An altered version saw researchers creating a kirigami-style design that accommodated small slits between pores across the e-skin. This felt like a moment of epiphany as all of a sudden they had an alternative which was more flexible and durable.
The technology has already been put through the test, with results speaking loudly of its efficiency.