Preventing postural hypotension, syncope and falls with smart materials and monitoring

与腿部过度肿胀相关的疾病很常见。这种肿胀可能与疼痛、静脉曲张的产生、站立时血压降低(低血压)有关，并导致头晕、昏厥和摔倒。这些事件可能会严重影响生活质量，在严重情况下会导致死亡。有充分的记录表明，高达30%的老年人患有站立性低血压。大约每62名加拿大人中就有一人患有肿胀(北美约有700万人。妊娠期常见的肿胀高度列为静脉曲张的原因之一。对于86,000名患有脊髓损伤的加拿大人来说，控制脊髓损伤患者的下肢血流量也是一项健康风险。目前针对这些疾病的物理疗法包括空气按摩器和压缩长袜，前者不允许步行使用，后者试图限制行走过程中腿部的血液积聚和液体积聚。然而，这两种装置都不能适应患者不断变化的生理条件，而压缩长袜只能为水肿提供被动的帮助。因此，这一跨学科项目的主要目标是开发一种新的智能技术辅助疗法，以有效地帮助患有过度肿胀或站立低血压的人类腿部的液体容量控制。我们的目标是开发所需的技术和治疗应用方案，为三个初始群体提供有效的血压和容量控制：脊髓损伤、孕妇和老年人。我们将开发智能袜子，其压缩压力可以通过外部刺激进行调节。这些袜子将嵌入介电弹性体执行器(DEA)，这是廉价的智能

Disorders associated with excessive swelling of the legs are common. This swelling can be associated with pain, the production of varicose veins, reduced blood pressure (hypotension) when standing and cause light-headedness, fainting and falls. These events can significantly affect quality of life and, in severe cases, lead to death. It is well documented that up to 30% of the elderly have standing hypotension. Approximately 1 in 62 Canadians suffer with swelling (about 7 million people in North America. Swelling is common during pregnancy ranks highly as one of the causes of varicose veins. Control blood flow and volume in the lower limbs of spinal cord injury patients is also a health risk for the 86,000 Canadians living with spinal cord injury. Current physical remedies to these disorders include air compression leg massagers, which do not allow for ambulatory use, and compression stockings, which attempt to limit blood pooling and fluid build-up in the legs during walking. However, neither of these devices is able to adapt to the changing physiological conditions of the patient while compression stockings can provide only passive assistance to oedema. The main goal of this interdisciplinary project is therefore to develop a novel smart-technology-assisted therapy to effectively assist with fluid volume control in the legs of humans with excessive swelling or standing hypotension. Our objectives are to develop the technology and therapeutic application protocols required to provide effective blood pressure and volume control in three initial groups: spinal cord injury, pregnant women and the elderly. We will develop smart stockings whose compressive pressure can be modulated through external stimuli. These stockings will be embedded with Dielectric Elastomer Actuators (DEA), which are inexpensive smart