Abstract
(1) Background: millions of people, from children to the elderly, suffer from bladder dysfunctions all over the world. Monitoring bladder fullness with appropriate miniaturized textile devices can improve, significantly, their daily life quality, or even cure them. Amongst the existing bladder sensing technologies, bioimpedance spectroscopy seems to be the most appropriate one to be integrated into textiles. (2) Methods: to assess the feasibility of monitoring the bladder fullness with textile-based bioimpedance spectroscopy; an innovative lab-bench has been designed and fabricated. As a step towards obtaining a more realistic pelvic phantom, ex vivo pig’s bladder and skin were used. The electrical properties of the fabricated pelvic phantom have been compared to those of two individuals with tetrapolar impedance measurements. The measurements’ reproducibility on the lab bench has been evaluated and discussed. Moreover, its suitability for the continuous monitoring of the bladder filling has been investigated. (3) Results: although the pelvic phantom failed in reproducing the frequency-dependent electrical properties of human tissues, it was found to be suitable at 5 kHz to record bladder volume change. The resistance variations recorded are proportional to the conductivity of the liquid filling the bladder. A 350 mL filling with artificial urine corresponds to a decrease in resistance of 7.2%, which was found to be in the same range as in humans. (4) Conclusions: based on that resistance variation; the instantaneous bladder fullness can be extrapolated. The presented lab-bench will be used to evaluate the ability of textiles electrodes to unobtrusively monitor the bladder volume.
Highlights
Bladder control is regulated by complex neural mechanisms that are still not fully understood [1].This absence of bladder sensation can result in either (i) urinary retention, which can lead to severe complications, such as urinary tract infections [2], or (ii) urinary incontinence
(3) Results: the pelvic phantom failed in reproducing the frequency-dependent electrical properties of human tissues, it was found to be suitable at 5 kHz to record bladder volume change
This study aims at designing and fabricating such pelvic phantom and comparing it to the human body; its suitability can be discussed
Summary
Bladder control is regulated by complex neural mechanisms that are still not fully understood [1] This absence of bladder sensation can result in either (i) urinary retention, which can lead to severe complications, such as urinary tract infections [2], or (ii) urinary incontinence. These conditions can impact deeply the patient’s quality of life [3] if bladder fullness is not monitored in real-time by a non-invasive device that enables the patient to carry out everyday activities. Impedance can be calculated by applying Ohm’s law, and phase shift can be obtained
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