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Company Overview
Sensatex, Inc. (the “Company”), founded
in April 2000, is focused on the development and
commercialization of the SmartShirt System (the
“System”), a wearable solution for moving
a wide range of information on and off an active
person. The SmartShirt System incorporates advances
in textile engineering, wearable computing, and
wireless data transfer to permit the convenient
collection, transmission, and analysis of personal
health and lifestyle data.
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COMMERCIAL MARKETS
Overview
By incorporating a customizable range of information
processing capabilities from simple voice and
vital signs monitoring to personal area networking
for today's mobile individual, the Smart  Shirt
System enjoys applicability across a large number
of commercial settings encompassing a wide breadth
of the population spectrum. Sensatex will offer
innovative products for individuals interested
in weight loss, personal fitness, athletic performance,
search and rescue, and medical monitoring. The
following paragraphs outline a number of near-,
mid-, and long-term applications where on-body
information processing and transmission is in
high demand and could prove highly beneficial.
Though the different applications of the Smart
Shirt technology will require widely varying degrees
of System hardware and software complexity, the
first commercial generation of the Smart Shirt
System will have the ability to collect information
from a sensor suite that includes heart rate,
respiration, temperature, and voice readings.
The Smart Shirt's proprietary "plug-n-play"
capability offers the potential to integrate a
wealth of additional sensors and electronic devices
that meet a wide variety of additional end-uses.
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CONSUMER PRODUCTS
Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle
By offering a system that successfully integrates
fitness assessment and health management, Sensatex
will guide consumers in achieving and maintaining
a “healthy lifestyle.” There are currently
55 million Americans trying to lose weight, and
about 50 million frequent participants in athletic
activity. By using the System to measure biometric
data, many of these individuals can directly gauge
the physical effects of exercises (e.g. jogging,
aerobics, cycling, skiing) and everyday activities
(e.g., walking, mowing the lawn), information that
can be integrated in a comprehensive program to
help manage a person’s healthy lifestyle. From
maintaining a healthy diet and fitness regimen to
regulating nutrition and stress levels, a vast number
of people are interested in regularly monitoring
lifestyle habits. With critical real-time and historical
data, individuals can subsequently modify their
behavior to work towards overall health and well-being.
Individual Athletes/Team
Sports
The SmartShirt System is also valuable for athletes
in individual and team sports. Currently, there
are 96,000 teams and 3.4 million athletes in the
United States who could benefit from practicing
and competing with the SmartShirt System. Trainers
can use the handheld device to continuously monitor
athletes’ vital signs to enhance their performance
and ensure their physical safety. Coaches will have
access to real-time player data for providing instantaneous
feedback and historical data for tracking progress.
Microphones and speakers on the Shirt will permit
two-way voice communication between player and coach.
Additionally, coaches can ensure the physical safety
of athletes with the ability to methodically avoid
overworking players.
SEARCH AND RESCUE
Protecting Public Safety
Officers
In light of the recent terrorist attacks, Sensatex
plans to develop a SmartShirt System specifically
for the protection of public safety personnel, namely
firefighters, police officers, and rescue teams.
Used in conjunction with a wireless-enabled radio
system, the SmartShirt can monitor the health and
safety of public safety personnel/victims trapped
in a building or underneath rubble with the ability
to detect the exact location of victims through
positioning capability. In addition to monitoring
vital signs, the System will be able to detect the
extent of falls, detect the presence of hazardous
gases, offer two-way voice communication, and detect
the location of gunshot wounds and for police officers
or national guard.
MEDICAL PRODUCTS
Continuous Home Monitoring
Care for ambulatory and post-cardiac patients often
necessitates continuous monitoring of vital signs.
Arrhythmia and myocardial ischemia, in particular,
can occur sporadically and easily forego detection
by a standard EKG reading. The SmartShirt can continuously
collect and transmit vital signs data to existing
monitors or the Internet. The first commercial generation
of the Smart Shirt System will monitor EKG, heart
rate, respiration, temperature, and pulse oximetry
readings. The SmartShirt can also be used to monitor
vital signs data in infants with disorders such
as apnea, airway obstruction, prematurity, respiratory
synctial virus, gastroesophageal reflux, and seizure
disorders.
Remote Patient Examination
The SmartShirt System can also provide remote examination
capability for patients in nursing homes, at home,
or even while being transported via ambulance. The
System will be able to collect health data in a
comfortable manner and will also ensure that sensors
are properly placed on the patient. The data can
then be transmitted to the patient’s physician
or a facility (including the emergency room) that
possesses the proper expertise to assess the patient’s
condition. The system for this application will
include the capabilities described previously and
will also provide capability for 12-lead EKG (with
new sensors that are embedded into the garment),
remote stethoscope monitoring, and voice communication
with the patient.
Infant Vital Signs Monitoring
Infants can be prescribed home vital signs monitoring
for a host of different indications, some of which
include apnea, prematurity, gastroesophageal reflux,
infantile spasms. New trends in pediatrics are also
contributing to an increase in the use of home monitoring.
Infants under one  year
of age with Influenza or Respiratory Synctial Virus
(RSV) are being less frequently detained at the
hospital, and more often treated at home with the
assistance of a vital signs monitor. With 33% of
newborns likely to suffer from Influenza before
the age of one, and more than twice that number
for RSV, the growing trend in medical practice towards
home monitoring could make the infant monitoring
market potentially very large.
Image shows Infant being monitored by 3rd Generation
Prototype of Sensatex Smart Shirt
Sleep Studies Monitoring
There are estimated to be 40 million people in the
United States with chronic sleep disorders. These
include 18 million adults with sleep apnea, as well
as those with insomnia and narcolepsy. Loud snoring,
observed episodes of apnea, nocturnal choking, daytime
sleepiness, hypertension, and moderate to severe
obesity are all symptoms of sleep-related disorders.
Of this vast population, 95% go untreated, due probably
to the inconvenience of full-channel polysomnography
(PSG), the traditional method of diagnosis. The
Sensatex sleep study product, with a sensor suite
to measure EKG, pulse oximetry, and body position,
if proven convenient and effective, has the potential
to awaken a vastly untapped market.
MILITARY PRODUCTS
Battlefield Combat Care
Solution
The SmartShirt was originally funded by DARPA for
the purpose of detecting bullet penetration, transmitting
soldiers' vital signs to a remote medical triage
unit, and ultimately saving lives on  the
battlefield. Sensatex expects to complete the design
of an enhanced Smart Shirt System that could be
used in military applications. This System will
be able to fully withstand battlefield conditions
and interface with the military's existing radio
systems to create full Information Node Capability
and Physical Condition Monitoring for the individual
soldier.
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