The developed system can help them on the one hand to improve their performance and on the other hand to be able to avoid injuries. In addition, additional clinical applications may be possible.
The dress can ideally complement fitness bracelets that collect and transport limited data only from certain parts of the body, as well as more complex clinical systems that examine posture and movement. Professor Jon Ho, a fellow at the Institute for Health Innovation and Technology at the National University of Singapore, wanted to fill the gap between existing solutions and ensure that physiological information could even be gathered from sports fields.
The current prototype of the garment can operate up to six sensors at a time and collect their data. The system can also collect information such as body temperature, but its most important function is to be able to pinpoint the location of the spine. So far, determining this in real time has been an extremely difficult task. Having the data can optimize the posture of an athlete, thereby reducing the risk of injury.
In the near future, the goal is to create new sensors to collect even more data and, as a result, make athletes ’workouts more effective. But the dress may also be suitable for detecting spinal problems or conducting long-term health checks. Ho pointed out that the advantage of the solution is that it can work with most modern smartphones, and the devices serve both as a power source and as screens for displaying sensor data.
