Whether it’s a patient with a degenerative disease or an astronaut in zero gravity, there are people who need to know if their muscles are failing. I can’t.
A tape measure works to some extent, but at this point it’s really correct Means to measure muscle size and mass in specific parts of the body incorporate clinic-based techniques such as MRI scans.
A team of Ohio State University scientists, led by electrical and computer engineering graduate Allyanna Rice, set out to develop a smaller, cheaper, patient-friendly alternative. The result is a wearable device that looks just like a traditional blood pressure cuff.
It incorporates two electrical coils made of conductive thread, sewn into the fabric in a stretchy zigzag pattern. One of these coils acts as a transmitter and the other as a receiver. Importantly, the size of the loop formed by each coil (when the device is wrapped around the limb) depends on the underlying muscle volume.
“Applying a time-varying current to the transmit coil creates a magnetic flux in the transmit coil. Magnetic flux is then induced in the receive coil, and this flux induces a measurable voltage in the receive coil,” Rice explains. He gave me “The induced magnetic flux depends on the cross-sectional area of the coil. Therefore, as the circumference of the limb increases, so does the overall magnetic flux and voltage in the receiving coil.”
The device has so far been tested on 3D-printed leg molds stuffed with ground beef to simulate the calf muscles of an average-sized person. We found that we could accurately detect small changes in overall limb size and measure muscle loss of up to 51%.
Ohio State University
As the tool is further developed, it is hoped that it will wirelessly connect to an app to record patient self-administered readings and provide them to healthcare providers.
“We envision patients wearing the device when they want to check their muscle size, rather than wearing the sensor continuously,” Rice said. It could be daily, weekly, or monthly depending on the underlying condition.
A paper on NASA-supported research co-authored by Professor Asiminia Kiourti was recently published in a journal. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.
Source: Ohio State University
