[HN Gopher] Self-powered diaper sensors that monitor urine sugar...
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Self-powered diaper sensors that monitor urine sugar levels
Author : rustoo
Score : 50 points
Date : 2021-08-23 14:57 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tus.ac.jp)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tus.ac.jp)
| Benjamin_Dobell wrote:
| There's a few comments about baby diapers. It's not explicitly
| stated in the article or paper, but I believe this all pertains
| to adult diapers only, due to the fact diabetes _prevention_ is
| mentioned.
|
| Type 1 diabetes is not (known to be) preventable, and Type 2
| diabetes must be inordinately rare in infants; if there's ever
| been a case at all.
|
| Perhaps we're still a little while off receiving electronic
| notifications telling us we need to change our child's diaper.
| maximegarcia wrote:
| I think this is for babies.
|
| Type 1 is not preventable, but detecting it is important as it
| could arise in infants (half of cases). Consequences are kind
| of hard if ignored / not detected. Then proper glucose
| monitoring can be set.
|
| And more generally, detecting glucose level from urine is a bit
| late for any kind of diabetes. So pretty useless for Type 2
| monitoring I think.
| azalemeth wrote:
| It _is_ implied that this is for adults:
|
| > Moreover, to measure urine sugar levels in elderly or long-
| term care patients, sensors can be embedded directly into their
| diapers.
|
| The paper itself explicitly states that it is for long-term
| care -- from its abstract:
|
| > A self-driven sensor that can detect urine and urine sugar
| and can be mounted on diapers is desirable to reduce the burden
| of long-term care.
|
| Modern diapers are remarkably complex. The super-absorbent
| polymer inside is really quite ingenious; and it's my
| understanding that brands have proprietary chemistry going on
| inside to prevent urea breaking down into ammonia and producing
| a smell, and damaging the patient's skin.
|
| I sustained an injury to my spinal cord earlier this year, and
| all of this became much more personal - I have to say, compared
| to a urinary catheter (a device that can only be described as
| 'evil and tortuous') diapers are _positively_ idyllic...
| marktangotango wrote:
| Whether meant for adults or not, juvenile diabetes is real and
| often overlooked. Anyone who has children or ever hopes to have
| children should file away the fact that fruity smelling
| diapers/urine could indicate a real problem.
| lolc wrote:
| Haha, piss-powered, Bluetooth-enabled diapers? Truly the Internet
| of Shit is upon us. And as somebody with two medical devices
| attached that communicate via Bluetooth, I can hardly be in
| opposition to the idea.
| geek_at wrote:
| it'll be marketed to eldercare and in the end the only ones
| buying will be overly anxious parents of newborns
|
| (anxious first time father writing this) :D
| lostlogin wrote:
| Hang in there - I'm not sure the anxiety reduces, you just
| get used to it!
|
| I came here to rant about the amount of nappies in landfill
| and the waste increase in adding electronics.
|
| I was quite wrong.
|
| I do think that reusables _where possible_ offer huge
| reduction in waste generation, but this is borderline
| irrelevant in the context of adults.
| buescher wrote:
| "Put a chip in it!"
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Makes me think: having chip on your shoulder is not something
| considered positive.
| canada_dry wrote:
| > diaper sensors that can generate energy directly from urine
|
| I'm guessing this could lead to light-up Huggies baby diapers.
|
| _" Takes the guess work out of busy parenting"_
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| Already most diapers (for babies) have a yellow strip that
| turns blue with pee. No lights or electronics needed.
| code_duck wrote:
| This system could issue an alert to send a nurse to change
| the diaper, which is a significant advance over requiring
| visual inspection.
| bluGill wrote:
| Not really, babies need constant monitoring anyway so you
| will figure out the need fast enough.
| jlg23 wrote:
| I think they are aiming at the elderly; most babies dont need
| their glucose levels monitored constantly...
| canada_dry wrote:
| Ah, but does it flash? Can it been seen in the dark - without
| waking up baby?
| nodefortytwo wrote:
| why would you want that? nobody would wake a baby to change
| a diaper.
| wincy wrote:
| You might be underestimating just how deeply children
| sleep.
|
| My kid gets her diaper changed several times a night and
| sleeps through it. If she does wake up she cries for a
| drink of water then immediately goes back to sleep.
| purrcat259 wrote:
| If the nappy can't handle another round of pee or poop
| then yeah I might consider waking the baby up to avoid
| them waking up thanks to the pee.
|
| The secret is in changes before naps though :)
| recursive wrote:
| If it was a big squishy poop at risk of an overflow
| blowout I would.
| klyrs wrote:
| Light-up diapers sound like a rave fashion trend from hell.
| Maybe I should patent that just to prevent it from taking off
| until I'm too old to attend raves...
| mjcohen wrote:
| I expect this to appear in Marvin soon.
|
| https://www.comicskingdom.com/marvin
| ghostpepper wrote:
| You can also buy a blanket for your infant child that will
| monitor their heart rate and blood oxygen saturation and transmit
| it to your phone, but that doesn't mean most people need or will
| even benefit from knowing that information.
|
| Hopefully at some point we reach the point where we stop asking
| what else can be connected to the cloud and start considering
| what should not be.
| moonchrome wrote:
| Good luck getting my little guy to stay under the blanket. I
| did consider one of those "sock" monitors but I had to get too
| much baby stuff as is.
| hpoe wrote:
| My wife kept wanting to get that for our kids. I told her no,
| because all it would do is increase her anxiety. So far we are
| 3/3 kids and all of them have been fine without it thus far.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| Delicious urine sugar.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| They used to taste and examine urine as a medical exam. You can
| find old charts used for diagnosis called urine wheels.
| Diabetic urine is supposedly very sweet
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I taste mine occasionally. I'm a licensed hypochondriac. To
| those that are into hillbilly medicine, try to get a taste
| for your urine right after a blood test, so you know what
| normal glucose in the urine tastes like. It should not be
| sweet at all.
| xxs wrote:
| An ancient way was pouring urine under a stone - if ants would
| be gathering , the patient was presumed sick.
| mcculley wrote:
| I have been wondering for years when we will get automatic health
| diagnostics from our toilets. It looks like some of the tech is
| certainly cheap enough now.
| not_throw_away wrote:
| You mean like this? https://s-there.com/
| smoldesu wrote:
| Careful there, Smart Pipe[0]
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ
| mcculley wrote:
| Interesting! It does not look like they are shipping a
| product yet though.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Good one. there's gotta be some value in not having to stick
| needles in babies and old people quite so often.
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(page generated 2021-08-23 23:02 UTC)