Smart Textile Device with Embedded Fabric Electrodes Targeting Periodic Limb Movements Monitoring at Home: A Case Report

Easy-to-use wearable smart textile devices are expected to improve chronic disease treatment. As a preliminary application using wearable smart textile devices, we focused on periodic limb movement disorder (PLMD), in which nocturnal awakening is caused by periodic limb movements (PLMs) during sleep. Although PLMD requires both early detection and appropriate treatment based on a patient's usual sleep conditions, the repetitive execution of the most reliable evaluation of PLMs using polysomnography (PSG) may impose a financial burden and time constraints on patients; thus, physicians currently evaluate PLMs using acceleration-based device instead. However, this alternative method of evaluating PLMs is not sufficient, as PLMs sometimes involve only partial muscle activity. To improve the treatment of PLMD, we propose a socks-type smart textile device for home monitoring of PLMs based on surface electromyography (EMG), which is the same signal used to evaluate PLMs in PSG. The preliminary experimental results targeting one PLMD patient at home indicates that the surface EMG-based evaluation of PLMs using our proposed socks-type smart textile device potentially performs better than the conventional acceleration-based device received medical approval. Our proposed device may help to improve PLMD treatment based on the actual PLMs conditions at home.