ABSTRACT
Healthcare Sensor Many physiological and biochemical signals of an organism cannot be felt by sense organs of humans, yet tiny changes of such signals are often indicative of abnormal bodily function. Purpose-specifi c biomedical sensors are designed and developed based on the characteristics of these signals. They can convert or amplify these unperceivable signals or tiny and insensible signals to those that can be felt by our sense organs while quantifying them as much as possible. Based on detection of changes in sensor signals, the relationship pattern between these signal changes and pathological changes of body physiology is to be obtained. In this way, diagnosis of disease can be made with these sensors so as to provide reference and information feedback for treatment. A good example is a mercury thermometer for measuring body temperature, which smartly utilizes mercury’s property of changing volume at different temperatures. With expansion and shrinkage of the mercury column in a scaled vacuum tube, temperature signals are converted into scaled signals visible to our eyes.
