Electronic textiles based wearable electrotherapy for pain relief

Electrotherapy is a common therapeutic treatment used to provide pain relief. The device delivers a mild level of current via electrodes positioned on the skin to interfere with the pain signal and stimulate the release of the body's own natural painkiller to reduce the pain. This paper presents the materials and fabrication methods used to manufacture a textile based wearable electronic textile (e-textile) with electrodes embedded for joint pain relief. The electrode is made by three functional layers including textile layer, conductive layer, and electrode layer. An electronic control has been developed to deliver interferential therapy. The e-sleeve has been designed and developed alongside patient and public input and tested on six volunteers with self-reported knee joint pain. Four out of six volunteers reported noticeable pain reduction on using the e-textile. The wearable e-textile demonstrated no adverse effects and pilot evidence suggests this has the potential to be a comfortable and easy to use solution for pain relief for people living with osteoarthritis knee joint pain. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.