Clinical Trials on the Horizon for ‘Smart Bandages’
Imagine a world where a physician can assess a wound without having to remove a bandage. If the scientists from the Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) have anything to say about it – this world will soon be a reality. Dubbed ‘smart bandages’ – these biomedical devices are capable of dressing and electronically monitoring tissue damages using nano-sized sensors to monitor wounds as they heal – and they will likely begin clinical trials within the next 12 months, according to IFLScience.com. Real-time data can even be sent to medics through 5G mobile Internet networks, allowing physicians to treat patients remotely.
“It would connect that wound to a 5G infrastructre and that infrastructure through your telephone will also know things about you – where you are, how active you are at any one time,” Professor Marc Clement of ILS told BBC News. “Traditional medicine may be where a clinician might see a patient and then prescribe the treatment approach for a month or three months. What the future holds is a world where there’s the ability to vary the treatment to the individual, the lifestyle and the pattern of life.”
Talk about the future of individualized medicine!
