Autonomously switchable polymer materials developed for wearable medical devices

Wearable medical devices, such as the soft exoskeletons that provide support for stroke patients or controlled drug delivery patches, have to be made of materials that can adapt intelligently and autonomously to the wearer's movements and to changing environmental conditions. These are precisely the type of autonomously switchable polymer materials that have recently been developed by materials scientists at the University of Stuttgart and pharmacists at the University of Tübingen, whose research findings have been reported in Advanced Materials Technologies.