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Smartphone App Will Warn When You Need a Restroom


2 days ago 19
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Scientists have developed a special device for your bladder that will let you know how long you have before you need to pee.

According to a new paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this device sits in the bladder and transmits data on how full the bladder is to a phone app, allowing the user to know how long it takes to get to a restroom.

The researchers hope that this could help disabled or paralyzed people know when they need to go and that it could one day allow people to use their phones to help them pee.

The device is a small, flexible, battery-free implant that sits on the bladder wall. It is the first long-term bioelectronic sensor of bladder fullness to have been developed. It is hoped to be revolutionary for people who have issues sensing how full their bladder is due to health conditions that have affected the bladder nerves, such as bladder cancer, paralysis, or spina bifida.

bladder sensor
The soft, stretchable sensor (main) and (inset) a bladder. This device is hoped to help people who are paralyzed or injured know when their bladder is filling up. Northwestern University / ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS

Millions of people in the United States have bladder dysfunction of some form due to injuries or birth defects. The inability to know when your bladder is full can lead to infections and kidney damage.

"If bladder nerves are damaged from surgery or from a disease such as spina bifida, then a patient often loses sensation and is unaware that their bladder is full," study co-author, a professor of surgery at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and professor of biomedical engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering said in a statement.

"To empty the bladder, they often have to use catheters, which are uncomfortable and can lead to painful infections. We want to eliminate the use of catheters and bypass current bladder function monitoring procedures, which are highly invasive, very unpleasant and must be done in a hospital or clinical setting."

The device uses Bluetooth to send data to the person's phone, where it is tracked on an app. The researchers hope that this sensor could help doctors remotely monitor their patients' bladder function and, therefore, keep on top of any new health issues developing.

The device itself works using several sensors, which measure the degree of strain on the bladder wall. As it fills, it stretches, increasing the level of strain detected by the device.

"The key advance here is in the development of super soft, ultrathin, stretchable strain gauges that can gently wrap the outside surface of the bladder, without imposing any mechanical constraints on the natural filling and voiding behaviors," co-author John A. Rogers, a professor of materials science and engineering, biomedical engineering and neurological surgery at McCormick and Feinberg, said in the statement.

The device was first tested across a 30-day period in small animals and for an 8-week trial in non-human primates

"This work is the first of its kind that is scaled for human use," Ameer said. "We demonstrated the potential long-term function of the technology. Depending on the use case, we can design the technology to reside permanently inside the body or to harmlessly dissolve after the patient has made a full recovery."

The researchers hope to investigate using the new device to stimulate the bladder in a way that may allow for urination on demand.

bladder
Stock image of a bladder. The device uses Bluetooth to send data to the person's phone. ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS

"In addition to monitoring the filling, the app will be able to send warnings to the patient and then direct them to locations for the nearest restrooms," Ameer said. "Also, one day, patients will be able to trigger urination, on demand, through their smartphone."

They also hope that this device could one day be used to recreate the function of the entire bladder. In a paper published in the journal PNAS Nexus last month, the authors describe how they have developed a synthetic bladder patch seeded with a patient's stem cells—called the pro-regenerative scaffold (PRS)—that allowed them to mend the bladder without using other tissues.

"We are working to integrate our bladder regeneration technology with this novel wireless bladder monitoring technology to restore bladder function and monitor the recovery process after surgery," Ameer said.

"This work brings us closer to the reality of smart regenerative systems, which are implantable pro-regenerative devices capable of probing their microenvironment, wirelessly reporting those findings outside the body (to the patient, caregiver or manufacturer) and enabling on-demand or programmed responses to change course and improve device performance or safety."

"This technology represents a significant advancement, as there are currently no other tissue engineering-based approaches available to these patients," co-author Arun Sharma, a research associate professor of urology at Feinberg and of biomedical engineering at McCormick, said in the statement. "I am confident this will help improve the quality of life for many patients who will now be able to avoid the use of intestinal tissues and its myriad complications."

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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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