Functional Contact Lenses for Remote Health Monitoring in Developing Countries
Nicole K. Thomas, Ilkka Lähdesmäki, Andrew R. Lingley, Yu‐Te Liao, Jagdish Pandey, Andrei Afanasiev, Brian P. Otis, Tueng T. Shen, Babak Amir Parviz · 2011
The opportunities afforded by using a functional contact lens for remote wireless health status monitoring are discussed and the progress to date in the development of this technology platform is presented. A functional contact lens complete with sensors and embedded circuitry can be used to monitor the composition of tear fluid and, by extension, a number of health-status related parameters in the body in a noninvasive and continuous fashion. The data collected by the disposable contact lens may be sent wirelessly to a mobile phone that, in turn, can relay the information to a medical practitioner via the cellular phone network. If successfully developed and deployed, such a system can be used for monitoring a variety of health indicators over a large geographic area and population distribution with minimal need for the physical presence of health care providers.