A TEXTILE-BASED TISSUE OXYGENATION SENSOR USING MULTI-WAVELENGTH NEAR-INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY

Sensawear is a University of Bern-spinoff collaborating with OST Buchs to commercialize near-infrared elec-tronics to power a wearable, textile-based sensor for continuous tissue oxygenation (StO2) monitoring for the prevention of pressure injuries developed during a SNF/Innosuisse Bridge Discovery grant. The inherently-low emission power of a textile-based sensor requires high-output light sources and highly-sensitive photo detectors, while the use as a continuous monitor in healthcare requires low noise, repeatability, safety, and ease-of-use. The collaborative work has resulted in a functional demonstrator soon to be used for pilot studies, with measurement quality comparable to industry standard devices used for research purposes.