Next-Generation Wearable and Stretchable Strain Sensors for Healthcare: Materials, Mechanisms, Architectures, and Applications

Abstract

Wearable and stretchable strain sensors are central to smart wearable technology, enabling continuous, real-time, and noninvasive tracking of human motion and physiological signals for healthcare, sports, and human–machine interaction. Rapid progress in soft materials, structural design, and flexible electronics has led to devices with improved sensitivity, large strain range, durability, and skin conformability, yet practical translation into robust products remains limited. This review provides a comprehensive overview of recent advances in wearable and stretchable strain sensors with emphasis on healthcare applications. We first summarize key sensing mechanisms—including piezoresistive, capacitive, piezoelectric, triboelectric, and optical modes—and compare their operating principles and performance trade-offs. We then discuss material platforms such as elastomeric substrates, conductive polymers, nanomaterials, and hybrid composites, followed by critical design parameters (gauge factor, stretchability, hysteresis, response time, durability) that govern device performance. Structural and device engineering strategies, including microstructured surfaces, percolated networks, serpentine interconnects, porous scaffolds, and liquid-metal architectures, are highlighted as routes to achieving high performance under complex deformations. Representative applications in vital-sign monitoring, motion and gait analysis, rehabilitation, wound care, and smart textiles are reviewed, along with broader uses in soft robotics and structural health monitoring. Finally, we identify key challenges—long-term stability on skin, biocompatibility, power autonomy, secure data handling, standardized benchmarking, and scalable manufacturing—and outline future directions in self-powered systems, multimodal sensing, and AI-assisted analytics. This review aims to provide a consolidated framework to guide the design of next-generation, clinically relevant wearable strain-sensing platforms. Received: 2 December 2025 | Revised: 2 February 2026 | Accepted: 24 March 2026 Conflicts of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest tothis work. Data Availability Statement Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study. Author Contribution Statement Boluwatife Oluwasegun: Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Visualization. Oluwaseun Oni-Adimabua: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft. Kyrian Odo: Conceptualization, Methodology. Opeyemi Akanbi: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Project administration. Aimanose Eigbedion: Methodology, Formal analysis. Joseph Igbama: Validation, Investigation. Joseph Alieme: Validation, Investigation. Folakemi Ijagbemi: Validation, Resources. Ayotunde Igbekele: Resources, Visualization. Michael Adelere: Supervision, Project administration. Hakeem Oyeshola: Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing.