To satisfy the daily demand of skin condition maintenance, make non-invasive real-time detection, and get proper quantitative evaluation of skin viscoelasticity parameters at the same time, a portable non-invasive detection system to acquire real-time skin tissue viscoelasticity is developed. The system relies mainly on a single-degree-of-freedom forced vibration model, with spring-damp-mass, and on dynamic micro indentation method. The experiment is conducted on two kinds of springs, and on pigskin tissues as well, the system's suitability, accuracy and stability are confirmed. The skin viscoelasticity detection in vivo is also carried out on 20 subjects with different ages, the differences of skin viscoelasticity in various parts of the body are investigated, and the correlations between age and skin viscoelasticity are clarified.
Elasticity ; Humans ; Skin ; Skin Physiological Phenomena ; Time ; Viscosity

OBJECTIVETo investigate the biomechanical changes in skin after employing the skin stretch.

METHODSSkin samples were took from the test group which was stretched for 7 days and control group without stretch respectively in the end of 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 week. The biomechanical index were measured by tensiometer.

RESULTSThe mean destroy stress, breaking load, stretch rate of the test group decreased obviously in the first week (the breaking load was increasing at the beginning) and the three index increased subsequently, they reached the climax during the fourth week and turned to normal subsequently to the level of some higher than control group and normal value in the sixth week. The stiffness of the test group reached the climax at the first week and than decreased gradually to the level of some higher than normal value and control group. The biomechanical changes of te control group was not evident by comparing with the test gropu.

CONCLUSIONSSkin stretch may injured the biomechanical property during the early time and turned to normal soon afterwards. The stiffness of the skin was increased and its elasticity was decreased after performing skin stretch.

Biomechanical Phenomena ; Humans ; Skin Physiological Phenomena ; Skin, Artificial ; Stress, Mechanical ; Tensile Strength

A wide-band patch probe excited by coaxial line, which is useful for noninvasive measurement of superficial tissues at high frequencies, is presented in this paper. Optimization of the probe is performed by genetic algorithm (GA) combined with Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD). Then the optimized round patch probe is used to measure reflection coefficient for 1-7 GHz. The measured results show some interesting phenomena, which are very useful for reconstruction of electric properties of superficial tissues.
Algorithms ; Electric Conductivity ; Electromagnetic Phenomena ; Electrophysiology ; instrumentation ; Equipment Design ; Humans ; Muscle, Skeletal ; physiology ; Skin Physiological Phenomena

In plastic surgery, people hope the conventional expansion will be replaced by rapid expansion, which can shorten greatly the expansion period. Also people are concerned about whether the skin properties after rapid expansion approach that after conventional expansion. So we designed and made an apparatus for in vivo measurement of tension, and then measured the biomechanical properties of skin in vivo for the first time. The experimental results showed there was no significant difference between the rapid expansion method and conventional expansion method in respect to the area gain of expanded skin surface. Both the tension in vivo and the instant stretch-back ratio increased during the expansion, but fell almost to the control values after four weeks' maintaining period. So, rapid skin expansion did not produce any deleterious effect when compared with the conventional expansion. Extension of the maintaining period can improve the biomechanical properties of expanded skin and effectively reduce the stretch-back ratio. Therefore, rapid expansion with an extended maintaining period is clinically acceptable.
Animals ; Biomechanical Phenomena ; Dogs ; Elasticity ; Skin Physiological Phenomena ; Tensile Strength ; Time Factors ; Tissue Expansion ; methods

A reciprocal sliding skin friction testing apparatus was performed to investigate human skin frictional properties of different physiological factors such as different ages, gender and anatomical regions. Student's t-test for non-paired data and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used in data analysis. Fisher LSD was used for multiple comparison on the statistical significance of the coefficients. The results showed that the skin frictional properties at the different anatomical regions were strongly dependent on the age. The differences of friction coefficients at the different anatomical regions became negligible with the increase of age. The skin frictional properties of different gender at the same anatomical region and age exhibited no significant differences. The friction coefficients of different ages at the same anatomical regions showed significant differences.
Age Factors ; Elasticity ; Female ; Friction ; Humans ; Male ; Sex Factors ; Skin ; Skin Physiological Phenomena

The metabolic syndrome, a cluster of risk factors for cardiovascular disease, is closely related to environmental and lifestyle risk factors. Increasing evidence suggests that environmental risk factors may involve an increase in xenobiotic exposure, for example due to environmental toxins, medications, high meat intake, food additives and supplements; while lifestyle risk factors, such as sedentary lifestyles, may involve a decrease in the detoxification and elimination of xenobiotics. The skin, the body's largest organ, plays a distinct role in the detoxification and elimination of xenobiotics and the body lipid homeostasis, which is affected by sedentary lifestyle and physical activity, as well as by ambient temperature. Thus, it seems that decreased skin biotransformation and excretion, for example due to low ambient temperature and sedentary lifestyle, may be an important risk factor for metabolic syndrome. This review aims to provide insight into the role of the skin in the development of metabolic syndrome.
Humans ; Metabolic Syndrome ; physiopathology ; Risk Factors ; Skin ; physiopathology ; Skin Physiological Phenomena

For the conventional high frequency(HF) surgical equipment, the contact impedance between the two back electrodes when they are gluing with skin is 50-200 Omega. If the contact impedance between the two electrodes is either too large or too small, an alarm is needed. This detector is designed not only to detect the contact condition between skin and the back electrodes, but also to monitor and alarm the dynamic change of the contact impedance. It effectively prevents the potential damage to medical staff when the back electrodes of the double-loop HF surgical equipment is moved during operation. Thus, this design enhances the safety of HF surgical equipment in clinical use.
Electric Impedance ; Electrodes ; Equipment Design ; Monitoring, Physiologic ; instrumentation ; Skin Physiological Phenomena ; Surgical Equipment

Integrating physiological parameters measurement into mobile devices is a development tendency of mobile healthcare. Measurement methods for skin moisture and body fat content are studied in this paper. Electrodes are designed for easy integration into mobile devices, and can be embedded in the cover of the mobile phone. Experiments were conducted to obtain a fast and easy measurement method. The results of evaluation show that the measurement system can achieve the same accuracy as commercial products (with correlation above 0.9 and root mean squared error below 4%) in skin moisture and body fat content measurement. Measurement of local-area body fat content showed a nearly linear positive correlation between local-area body fat content and local-area body impedance.
Adipose Tissue ; Adiposity ; Humans ; Mobile Applications ; Monitoring, Physiologic ; instrumentation ; methods ; Skin Physiological Phenomena ; Skinfold Thickness

BACKGROUND: Alcohol intake induces complex changes in the human body. However, there has not been much investigation on the interaction between alcohol and human skin. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of alcohol intake on the skin's physiology. METHODS: A total 16 Korean males was enrolled in this study and they were divided into two groups (group A and group B). Each group included 8 people. Group A drank alcohol (20.1%, 360 ml) for 90 min and Group B drank 360 ml of normal saline. The body temperature, the skin erythema index, the transepidermal water loss (TEWL), the skin hydration, the skin pH and skin sebum were measured before and 30 min and 120 min after alcohol intake. RESULTS: In group A, the skin erythema index, TEWL, skin hydration and skin pH significantly increased 30 min after alcohol intake, while the body temperature and sebum decreased. All the measurements except sebum recovered 120 min after alcohol intake. However, in group B, all the measurements were not significantly changed. CONCLUSION: Alcohol intake affects thermoregulation, the skin barrier function and the skin pH. This study showing that physiologic changes are induced by alcohol intake may help investigate the interaction between alcohol and skin disease.
Body Temperature ; Body Temperature Regulation ; Erythema ; Human Body ; Humans ; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration ; Male ; Sebum ; Skin ; Skin Diseases ; Skin Physiological Phenomena