Design of Electro-Thermal Glove with Sensor Function for Raynaud's Phenomenon Patients.

Hewan Dawit,Syed Rashedul Islam,Qian Zhang,Jifu Mao,Lu Wang,Yimeng Li

doi:10.3390/ma14020377

Abstract

Raynaud’s phenomenon (RP) is a disease that mainly affects human fingertips during cold weather. It is difficult to treat this disease using medicine, apart from keeping the body in a warm environment. In this research, conductive knitted fabrics were fabricated to help relax the vessels of the patient’s fingertips by providing proper heat, and also serving as a sensor to detect finger motion after relaxation of the blood vessels of patients. Four different structures, termed plain, purl, interlock, and rib were produced using conductive silver/PE (polyethylene) yarn and wool yarn, with a computerized flat knitting machine. The effect of knitted structure on the electro-thermal behavior, sensitivity, and stability of resistance change (∆R/R) under different tensile forces was investigated. By comprehensive comparison, the purl structure was identified as the preferred structure for the heating glove for RP patients, owing to superior electro-thermal behavior. Additionally, the purl structure had a greater capacity to detect different motions with stable resistance change. This potential electro-thermal glove could be used for functional, as well as aesthetic (fashion) purposes, and could be worn at any time and occasion with complete comfort.

Highlights

Raynaud’s phenomenon (RP) is a disorder resulting in vasospasm which occurs because of the contraction of a blood vessel
Though heating gloves have been developed by several researchers, the gloves were not explicitly for RP patients, and are not comfortable to be worn at any time and place
During the production of the samples, the needle creates varied movements and arrangements, depending on the structure, and this led to the differentiation in the fabric morphology and yarn distribution

Summary

Introduction

Raynaud’s phenomenon (RP) is a disorder resulting in vasospasm which occurs because of the contraction of a blood vessel. It is a particular series of discolorations of the fingers and/or the toes because of limited transportation (flow) of blood to the fingers after exposure to change in temperature or emotional events [1,2,3,4]. In RP patients the flow of blood to the fingertips is restricted due to narrow blood vessels of the fingertips [2,6,7]. The main recommended method to manage this disease is keeping the hand warm using hot water to relax the vessels. Some of the recently reported heating gloves, such as in

Methods

Results

Conclusion