When you run, there are various physical forces at work. Your heart beats faster to pump more blood through your veins. Your breathing increases as well, allowing the blood to pick up more oxygen to transport to your muscles. But this wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for pressure. Without this physical force, blood wouldn’t pump and you wouldn’t be able to function—and it’s also why medical equipment largely uses pressure sensors to help examine the interior of a person’s body.
Pressure Sensors in the Medical Field
Sensors that detect pressure, in one form or another, are prominent in the medical field. In fact, pressure sensors are sometimes added to a patient’s body through an implant. This allows for around-the-clock patient monitoring and gives real-time results to doctors.
Recently, a new sensor has been developed for the medical field. This particular sensor takes the form of an implantable fiber that may be able to actually detect disease. Made of hydrogel, it can bend and twist in a patient’s body. The fiber can sense when it’s being stretched, thus detecting pressure, and can possibly deliver therapeutic pulses of light when the fiber senses the stretching.
Past Pressure Sensors
Pressure sensors in the medical field weren’t always as small as they are now. In fact, most couldn’t be implanted in the human body. The first differential pressure sensor simply showed that it acted as a differential pressure sensor for, especially low differential pressures. The second generation of this device was smaller but still larger than typical membrane-based static differential pressure sensors. Today, sensors are far smaller than they were and, in some cases, can be implanted in the human body. More specifically, sensors can play a major role when it comes to monitoring a patient.
Pressure Sensors in Use
These days, pressure sensors are being used more and more in the medical field as they become smaller, lighter, and able to convey more data to doctors. Of course, this means that heavier sensors are being replaced. However, larger sensors are still used in medical equipment.