A Feasibility Study on Textile Electrodes for Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation

Over recent decades, wearable electronics have introduced successful bio-medical products to the commercial market, including real-time monitoring, symptom diagnosis, stimulation therapy, and rehabilitation. Hydrogel electrodes are commonly used in such devices, for data acquisition or electrical intervention. However, they are not a comfortable option for long-term applications and can trigger allergic reactions. Therefore, low-cost textile electrodes are actively being researched as an alternative to hydrogel standards. In this work, we study the efficacy of different electrolyte layers (water, water-in-oil (W/O) cream, and oil-in-water (O/W) cream), placed between the skin and textile-based electrodes, on contact impedance during transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS). Both electrode-tissue impedance (ETI) and normalized cross-correlation (NCC) analyses were used to evaluate and compare the performance of textile electrodes with electrolyte to hydrogel electrodes. The study revealed that textile-based electrodes with O/W cream present a viable, effective alternative to hydrogel standards for short-term use, whereas W/O cream presents a possible solution for some longer-term applications.