Autonomous flexible sensors for health monitoring

A concise, although admittedly non-exhaustive, didactic summary is given of some of the main concepts and approaches related to recent advances and developments to enable autonomous detection and monitoring of the likelihood or existence of a health risk state in continuous and real-time modes. To give a comprehensive statement, different aspects of these advanced materials and related devices are presented and discussed, such as: flexible sensors used for non-invasive detection of health-related physiological markers; self-powered materials to enable extended usage periods by harvesting energy from body movement and temperature; and self-healing properties of the materials used on the wearable devices to enable extended usage periods if scratched or cut. The linkage of these advanced materials and technologies together is particularly specified. Some of the strong and weak points in the development of each wearable material/device are clearly highlighted and criticized. Several ideas regarding further improvement of skin-based wearable devices are also discussed.