The Chinese brand ZTE presented at the Mobile World Congress this outfit with sensors to measure 5G connectivity and biomedical parameters.

After a long year in which health has been a key priority, medical-focused applications could not fail at the 2021 Mobile World Congress. Perhaps the most striking event was ZTE’s 5G T-shirt. The Chinese company presented a prototype that made electrocardiograms using sensors integrated into the tissue, capable of measuring the components of respiration, muscle effort, temperature and sweat.

The design of this YouCare T-shirt at the moment is the result of a collaboration between ZTE and the Italian Red Cross. It has no metal components and all the sensors go through the fabric from the production process itself. The result is a garment that looks like a regular garment that can be washed without any problems.
Its applications in the field of health are mainly related to prevention. "The idea is to be able to control the health of healthy people and people who already have problems; in the case of the latter, to control the situation," says Qi Wang, director of the ZTE Spanish Terminal. "When there is a problem you can deal with it immediately." In that case, “the data is sent to the app and can also be sent to the health center,” Wang added.

Collaborating with medical services would make it a smart shirt that would be of interest in the clinical field. “An electrocardiogram is done in real time, continuously, not under certain conditions, in a hospital or medical center,” says Wang, which can be useful in detecting certain abnormalities that only occur occasionally, such as occasional tachycardia. And also to identify anxiety situations, because it can be checked when the rhythm of breathing changes.

This does not mean that ZTE does not see anyone as a potential user of this shirt. Especially when it comes to certain profiles of people, such as sports fans. In the mobile app, while they are doing physical exercise, they will be able to check their status as well as record their progress.

Technology twisted with medicine

The YouCare T-shirt wasn’t the only device dyed with mobile medicine on Mobile. Italian startup Corticale came to the event with an original proposal. It is a brain interface that aims to function in a specific environment in order to understand neural activity.

They have created a system with many tiny units consisting of a very fine needle and a chip. These needles, which are less thick than a human hair, are made up of a large number of sensors of microscopic size. For comparison, the Neuralink device created by Elon Musk has 32 sensors; Cortical’s options show hundreds.

The needles implanted in the patient’s brain are the result of a specific miniaturization process. "This allows us to place the device in the same physical space. Where there were only a dozen sensors in the past, there are now thousands and thousands of bioelectric signals that collect at the same time," says Fabio Bio, CTO of CortiCale.

Unlike Neuralink, the Italian startup intends to use its system only for medical applications. They are currently moving into the field of preclinical use of research, waiting for health authorities to certify the product. Proposed applications include obtaining data on diseases such as Alzheimer’s, ALS, possible trauma, or epilepsy. In addition, the goal is to use technology to stimulate the brain as a tool to alleviate or cure certain diseases.