A team of designers from the Imperial College of London and the Royal College of Art have designed a pair of sports pants that help paraplegic athletes locate injuries.
The system, dubbed Bruise Injury Detection, is able to find possible sites of injury by displaying areas of impact in red, according to CNET.
A special pressure-sensitive film created by Fuji is used for the pants. The film is typically used to test whether print rollers are applying even pressure. Designers installed the film in pockets stitched over common injury sites using sweat-absorbing stretch fabric.
The more pressure applied to the pants, the more intense the color appears, Gizmodo reported. The Bruise Injury Detection suit is currently only a prototype.
The team consists of students Lucy Jung, Dan Garrett, Elena Dieckmann, and Ming Kong, CNET reported. The students were inspired to create the suit by Talan Skeels-Piggins, Paralympian skier, who spoke at Imperial College.
"We were really inspired by what Talan had to say about competing in sport and it was great to hear about his experiences. Offhandedly, he remarked about not being able to feel his injuries after competing in high impact sporting events and it prompted us to look more into this area," Jung said. "We found that many sportspeople often don't realize that they're injured themselves because they can't feel anything, which could have serious health implications. We hope in the future that our trousers will be used by athletes to better monitor their health and well-being."
Skeels-Piggins talked to Wired UK about Autonomic Dyrseflexia (AD) - the inability to control a rise in blood pressure that could eventually cause death if left unchecked - and how the suit could help prevent it from taking place, Gizmodo reported.
"One cause of AD is pain to the body initiated by severe injury. An injured paraplegic might not be aware of the severity of an injury and therefore ignore it," he said. "This could lead to AD and the complications resulting from lack of immediate care. The suit would highlight a possible fracture site, thereby allowing the individual to go to the hospital for medical treatment and preventing the onset of AD."
The team is looking to further develop the prototype so that it becomes a full bruise suit, CNET reported. Afterwards, the team would like to move the suit into production.
