With my concept locked into place with the whole preventing stress leading to depression I’ve found myself the perfect way to sit in between the implantation method and the massive on skin device, finding a medical document which is about an experiment with Epidermal tattoo potentiometric sodium sensors with wireless signal transduction for continuous non-invasive sweat monitoring.

Where my concept is different is the fact this test was done to monitor physical activity’s so by merging both the sensors used for the Air Force stated in my last post with this temporary tattoo application process I now have my product.

If you would like to take a look through the PDF click on the link provided:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956566313008257

FINAL CONCEPT – In short

A temporary tattoo which has micro sensors inside with the ability to send out data via NFC to a nearby smart phone then to a pc via email or USB. By being extremely small and flexible the device will suit anybody with virtually any lifestyle so restricted movement isn’t an issue. Excessive rubbing may wipe away the tattoo and sensors.

Why?

Yet again to stop medical centres getting overbooked for people with suspected depression or even general check-ups on current depression victims.

How?

By monitoring the sweat naturally produced by humans, looking specifically at what is inside, mainly Orexin-A which allows us to understand alertness, brain state and focus. All via a temporary tattoo either bought by the patient in advance or prescribed by a local GP before referring to a depression facility.

How is data analysed?

By using NFC to a smartphone data can be extracted by the user. With the interface of the mobile app makes self-diagnostics possible with simple charts which can be transferred to a pc or emailed directly to your GP for in-depth analysis.

As you already know my aim is to have a device with built in sensors, which monitor your sweat on a daily basis. Which is automatically sent to your doctor / GP for real time health monitoring. With the aim to cut down on the congested doctors freeing up the waiting rooms and appointment for the people which really need them. The device was originally planned to be under the skin making it un-noticeable so fashion oriented people don’t get put off about having a patch on their arm, back or any part of the body although a new issue was pointed out me via the class tutor which is not many people in the modern day are going to want a device stuck inside them which traces specific things without you really knowing who is looking at it.

So for this reason I’ve researched into any other possible ways of which data can be taken from humans. This is where I reverted back to the on skin patch to collect data via sweat directly as your body pushes it out.

But the task was to come up with a plausible way to have a device which could become real in the upcoming future so I simple googled ‘Monitoring Sweat into google where I found a couple of interesting articles and medical reports regarding what can be found.

1:

HEADLINE: “Measuring Your Sweat, A Health Monitor And Diagnostic Device Is The Future Of Wearable Technology”

“Sweat, the cooling system of your body, is made almost completely of water, with tiny amounts of other chemicals, including ammonia, urea, salts, and sugar. Remarkably, these chemicals along with the small molecules and peptides they contain can reveal what is going on inside your body. For this reason, scientists are trying to harness sweat through some form of wearable technology and turn it into a new way to measure and monitor your immediate health. “Sweat contains a trove of medical information and can provide it in almost real time,” wrote Dr. Jason Heikenfeld, associate professor of electronic and computing systems, University of Cincinnati, in an article for IEEE Spectrum.”

This clearly shows work is currently being undertaken for this technology meaning there must be a market for it. The next part of this specific article I took most of my inspiration from is when the Air Force was mentioned to want this device to monitor the stress and alertness of the pilot.

“The Air Force is hoping the device will be able to accurately measure cytokine biomarkers, as a determination of a pilot’s stress level, and to measure neuropeptide biomarkers, such as Orexin-A, to understand alertness levels and general brain states.”

Take a look at the article here:

http://www.medicaldaily.com/measuring-your-sweat-health-monitor-and-diagnostic-device-future-wearable-technology-308408

2.

With the Air Force’s quote in mind I set out to research what stress levels could lead to in the daily life of the public. The results are a chain of events quite popular around the world as followed:

Higher the stress within a single person gives a much higher chance of depression forming and losing control meaning the mental state of the person would drop significantly as they may become unfocused with what they’re doing.

take a look at this article on teh BBC webpage:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29742908

“Some 10.4 million days are lost annually to work-related stress in the UK, according to the Health and Safety Executive.

The World Health Organization says it costs businesses in the US $300bn (£187bn; €237bn) a year.”

These figures could be dramatically lowered with the use of my concept capturing and stopping depression forming. Or even if you think your becoming depressed don’t call your GP just use this product to quickly diagnose yourself.

Once again I’ve decided I want to change what my concept is, this time making it more plausible whilst being beneficial to a mass audience. This came around as I was researching for one of my other ideas where I came across an experiment which took place at the University of Cincinnati where Ph.D. student Daniel Rose which consisted of an athletic student is wearing a prototype sensor which monitored his sweat indicating his performance. However, the problem I see with this device is how large it is and how people wont want to wear it in public with how image concious the world is today.

This device used a mobile phone to transmit data too and from the skin patch, this is the area I really want to incorporate with my product so the mass population which have smart phones can use it.

So what is my Concept?

As I found the previous idea a little predictable and generic I’ve decided to take the same sort of concept but apply it to a different form of application. In this case a microchip which is inserted inside the body of the user e.g. inside the arm, leg or neck. Which monitors every health aspect of the human body ensuring everyone is healthy and if they was to become ill the data (which can be transmitted directly to the GP via WiFi or NFC). However, you have to think of what people would think to thins sort of technology as it means they rather need a large injection or small operation which could leave a scar. And with the ‘looks’ conscious world we have today agreeing to this may lead to a failure. Another issue would be knowing the device you’re having fitted is tracking your personal data and knowing it is inside you leads you to think what else they can track.

Who is it for?

Just like previous ideas my sole purpose is to cut down the waiting times inside all medical related buildings e.g. Hospitals and Doctors. More specifically to allow more room for patients which are seriously ill or injured

Research

(https://uk.news.yahoo.com/us-military-developing-brain-implants-restore-memory-153032906.html?.tsrc=yahoo#97tHy5Z)

The above link is to an article I found which talks about how the US Military are developing brain implants to restore memory for the soldier at war. Maybe this could be adapted to analyse the vitals of the general public.

Quoted from – (‘http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/the-military-is-building-brain-chips-to-treat-ptsd/371855/’)

“The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, wants to reach deep into your brain’s soft tissue to record, predict and possibly treat anxiety, depression and other maladies of mood and mind”

Here is another solution of which this device could be used to predict upcoming conditions to do with the mind.

After a couple of days planning out my pdf and 60 second video I’ve decided to scrap the whole ‘Smart Home’ idea and approach a more sci-fi idea of a contact lens which analyses your blood pressure, vitals and overall health via blood vessels within the eye. Of course I now have to research into, if any, existing concepts or tests showing if this is possible.

The closest research i could find towards this is from a google scientist who has creared a contact lens which has the sole purpose to measure blood sugar levels in tears. This is a good way for diabetics to see what sugar levels they have.

The device is said to monitor once every second and transmit that data to a external device via the built in antenna. The article written about this product claims

“Another development Otis has in store for the lens is to add a tiny LED light, visible only to the wearer, that would change color to indicate whether glucose levels are too low, too high, or in the optimal zone.”

Clearly stating the area this product features is the digital doctor.

**This is still only a prototype but they wish to carry it further**

Now it’s the end of my skills workshop sessions I’ve been handed my first real Brief – Convergence.

The brief outlines the key aspects I need to cover, these being the skills learnt in the workshops. It sates that i must:

“produce a proof of concept PDF document that responds to one of the following themes:

• Making simple music
• The death of newspapers/books
• Personal security
• The Digital Doctor
• Toy Hack

You are required to visualise your idea in some form, this can be a series of composited
images, and/or a proof of concept digital film, utilising the skills covered in the Motion
Graphics / Visual Effects workshops.

You are to consider the target audience (who it is for) in terms of both your concept’s end user and any text, style and presentation created for the PDF to pitch your concept as you have learnt during the Designing for the User workshops.”

So from this I feel this brief is similar to the one given during week 3&4 just incorporating the skills learnt. So my first idea for this task was to twist the way my previous idea worked to fit this brief. So I split it down to two categories so I didn’t fit both digital doctor and personal security as the brief states only one category can be chosen. Just as a refresher here is my first idea:

SmartHome –

Home system which analyses multiple aspects of your life..