Wearable devices for detection and treatment of chronic wounds

Chronic wounds remain a critical global health issue, especially for diabetic foot ulcers, which cause around 3.7 million cases of amputations despite billions of dollars of medical investment every year. Current treatments of chronic wounds still majorly rely on doctors' frequent subjective evaluations and interventions, which have restricted therapeutic precision and efficiency. Continuous development of new materials and flexible bioelectronics enables researchers to develop wearable, low-cost, and user-friendly platforms for real-time monitoring and treatment of chronic wounds. In contrast to existing wound-care reviews, which typically discuss relevant fields separately, this review focuses on an interdisciplinary perspective to discuss recent achievements in sophisticated wearable multimodal sensing systems and smart therapeutic devices as well as their envisioned future development. The sensing technologies span different detection mechanisms for various wound indicators, including temperature, pH, oxygen, and uric acid. Therapeutic technologies include drug-based and drug-free approaches with comprehensive discussions on their advantages and application scenarios. We highlight closed-loop device systems that combine sensing and therapy that enables automated, precise, and dynamic wound care. In addition, engineering challenges and future research directions are discussed to realize personalized and scalable solutions for chronic wounds. We expect this review to serve as a comprehensive reference for researchers, clinicians, and engineers pursuing next-generation wound-management technologies.