Validation and user experience of a dry electrode based Health Patch for heart rate and respiration rate monitoring.

Successful implementation of remote monitoring of vital signs outside of the hospital setting hinges on addressing three crucial unmet needs: longer-term wear, skin comfort and signal quality. Earlier, we developed a Health Patch research platform that uses self-adhesive dry electrodes to measure vital digital biomarkers. Here, we report on the analytical validation for heart rate, heart rate variability and respiration rate.

Flexible large-area ultrasound arrays for medical applications made using embossed polymer structures.

With the huge progress in micro-electronics and artificial intelligence, the ultrasound probe has become the bottleneck in further adoption of ultrasound beyond the clinical setting (e.g. home and monitoring applications).

The Added Value of Musculoskeletal Simulation for the Study of Physical Performance in Military Tasks.

The performance of military tasks is often exacerbated by additional load carriage, leading to increased physical demand. Previous studies showed that load carriage may lead to increased risk of developing musculoskeletal injuries, a reduction in task speed and mobility, and overall performance degradation. However, these studies were limited to a non-ambulatory setting, and the underlying causes of performance degradation remain unclear.

The effects of mass, bulk and stiffness of personal protective equipment and clothing on physical performance when performing a military mobility obstacle course.

Background: Soldiers are required to conduct tasks and operations in physically demanding situations, where the ability to move (mobility) quickly is important to lethality and survivability. This study employed a specially designed suit to try to isolate the main mass property characteristics of personal protective clothing/equipment (PPCE) including mass, bulk and stiffness as much as possible and evaluated their effects on soldier performance across operationally-relevant mobility tasks.

Method: Eight male military subjects performed the load effects assessment program (LEAP) obstacle course while wearing 7 different configurations of specifically designed suit: unencumbered (control), 10 kg mass, 30 kg mass, 20 L bulk, medium stiffness, high stiffness and a mixed configuration consisting of 10 kg mass, 20 L bulk and medium stiffness.

Two isothermal challenges yield comparable physiological and subjective responses.

Purpose: Ventilated vests are developed to reduce thermal stress by enhancing convective and evaporative cooling from skin tissue underneath the vest. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether thermal stress is equal when a ventilated vest is worn compared to a no-vest situation with similar dry thermal resistance.

Methods: Nine healthy males walked on a treadmill (7 km h) for 45 min in a desert climate (34 °C, 20% relative humidity) with and without ventilated vest.