OFSETH: Optical Fibre Embedded into technical Textile for Healthcare, an efficient way to monitor patient under magnetic resonance imaging

Healthcare monitoring is a general concern for patients requiring a continuous medical assistance and treatment. In order to increase mobility of such patients, a huge effort is pursued worldwide for the development of wearable monitoring systems able to measure vital physiological parameters such as respiratory movements, cardiac activity, pulse oximetry, temperature of the body. Technical or smart textiles that incorporate different sensors play a growing role in these developments as they are well suited for wearability and can ensure comfort to the user. While most developments up to now have been focused on the use of electrical sensors, the aim of OFSETH is to take advantage of pure optical sensing technologies for extending the capabilities of medical technical textiles for wearable health monitoring. OFSETH expects to achieve a breakthrough in healthcare monitoring applications where standard (non-optical) monitoring techniques show significant limits such as for the monitoring of anesthetized patients under Medical Resonance Imaging (MRI).