- Chun, Keum;
- Kang, Youn;
- Lee, Jong;
- Nguyen, Morgan;
- Lee, Brad;
- Lee, Rachel;
- Jo, Han;
- Allen, Emily;
- Chen, Hope;
- Kim, Jungwoo;
- Yu, Lian;
- Ni, Xiaoyue;
- Lee, KunHyuck;
- Lee, JooHee;
- Park, Yoonseok;
- Chung, Ha;
- Li, Alvin;
- Lio, Peter;
- Yang, Albert;
- Fishbein, Anna;
- Paller, Amy;
- Rogers, John;
- Xu, Shuai;
- Jeong, Hyoyoung
Itch is a common clinical symptom and major driver of disease-related morbidity across a wide range of medical conditions. A substantial unmet need is for objective, accurate measurements of itch. In this article, we present a noninvasive technology to objectively quantify scratching behavior via a soft, flexible, and wireless sensor that captures the acousto-mechanic signatures of scratching from the dorsum of the hand. A machine learning algorithm validated on data collected from healthy subjects (n = 10) indicates excellent performance relative to smartwatch-based approaches. Clinical validation in a cohort of predominately pediatric patients (n = 11) with moderate to severe atopic dermatitis included 46 sleep-nights totaling 378.4 hours. The data indicate an accuracy of 99.0% (84.3% sensitivity, 99.3% specificity) against visual observation. This work suggests broad capabilities relevant to applications ranging from assessing the efficacy of drugs for conditions that cause itch to monitoring disease severity and treatment response.