Advanced materials of printed wearables for physiological parameter monitoring

The consumer demand for flexible wearables has increased rapidly with the advent of recent commercial health monitoring systems. The progress in wearable electronics for monitoring physiological parameters in the healthcare industry is rapid and its adaptation is having a positive impact on society. Physiological parameters are important health indicators and their monitoring could effectively enable early detection of disease. This would also help reduce the number of more severe health problems, in disease prevention and lower the overall public sector health cost. Clinical devices for measurement of these parameters are also traditionally non-wearable. Therefore, companies and researchers are focused on the development of new materials and related manufacturing methods which will enable specific wearable health sensors with a high degree of robustness, repeatability and accuracy. On the development of printed physiological signal monitoring devices, much progress has been achieved in recent years. Eventhough several reviews have been presented on flexible and wearable electronics, a detailed summary of the recent progresses on the specific class of printed physiological signal monitoring sensing devices has not been reported. In this review, recent progress and challenges on the functional inks and substrate materials for mass scale production and customization of printed flexible and wearable physiological signal monitoring sensor devices are summarized.