Movement disorders can have a variety of underlying causes and factors that can exacerbate the disease progression, so symptom monitoring and adjustment of therapeutic regiments can be a challenge. Parkinson’s, for example, causes tremors to go up and down in intensity, requiring appropriate levels of medication to be administered. New skin patch technology, based on stretchable electronics, nanomembranes, and nanoparticles, developed by scientists in Korea and U.S., has the potential to provide continuous movement monitoring and drug delivery in a device the size of a bandage.
Silicon nanomembranes have been fabricated to act as movement sensors and silica nanoparticles, activated by heat to release their payloads, can hold therapeutic drugs. The electronics include gold nanoparticles as a form of non-volatile memory, but the actual processing has to be done through an external device. Of course, considering the continuing pace of miniaturization of electronics, even the computer itself may soon be made small and flexible enough to fit on the patch.
Article in Nature Nanotechnology: Multifunctional wearable devices for diagnosis and therapy of movement disorders…