Polymer Optical Fiber Sensors in Healthcare Applications: A Comprehensive Review.
Sensors (Basel)
; 19(14)2019 Jul 18.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-31323734
Advances in medicine and improvements in life quality has led to an increase in the life expectancy of the general population. An ageing world population have placed demands on the use of assistive technology and, in particular, towards novel healthcare devices and sensors. Besides the electromagnetic field immunity, polymer optical fiber (POF) sensors have additional advantages due to their material features such as high flexibility, lower Young's modulus (enabling high sensitivity for mechanical parameters), higher elastic limits, and impact resistance. Such advantages are well-aligned with the instrumentation requirements of many healthcare devices and in movement analysis. Aiming at these advantages, this review paper presents the state-of-the-art developments of POF sensors for healthcare applications. A plethora of healthcare applications are discussed, which include movement analysis, physiological parameters monitoring, instrumented insoles, as well as instrumentation of healthcare robotic devices such as exoskeletons, smart walkers, actuators, prostheses, and orthosis. This review paper shows the feasibility of using POF sensors in healthcare applications and, due to the aforementioned advantages, it is possible to envisage a further widespread use of such sensors in this research field in the next few years.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Técnicas Biossensoriais
/
Fibras Ópticas
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Tecnologia de Fibra Óptica
Limite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Sensors (Basel)
Ano de publicação:
2019
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Brasil
País de publicação:
Suíça