A continuous glucose monitor (CGM) may deliver excellent sensor accuracy and still disappoint in everyday use if the adhesive loses its hold during a commute, a workout, a shower, or a restless night. For medical device manufacturers, R&D teams, and design engineers, these moments are not simply patient experiences; they are real-world design inputs. Following a fictional wearer through one day makes those inputs tangible and shows what the adhesive system must deliver throughout the product's intended wear time.
Turning a User's Day into Requirements for Medical Device Development
Picture a CGM wearer starting the day at 7:00 a.m. The device has already spent the night moving against bedding as the wearer turned in sleep. At 8:30, a jacket and backpack strap brush across the patch during the commute. By 5:30 p.m., exercise brings repeated movement, perspiration, and higher skin temperature. A shower at 7:00 tests water resistance, while the hours afterward reveal whether the construction can manage moisture and remain comfortable. At 11:00 p.m., the device must still be secure enough to begin the cycle again - for many more days.
Each moment translates into a design requirement: secure fixation during sleep, conformability under clothing friction, flexibility during movement, and moisture management during and after activity. For manufacturers, this day-in-the-life view turns a generic wear-time target into a more useful development brief - one that connects the user environment with material selection, patch construction, geometry, and converting requirements.
Skin-Friendly Adhesive Technologies Built as Functional Multilayer Constructions
Meeting all of these demands rarely depends on a single adhesive property. Lohmann's solutions for medical wearables combine a skin-contact layer, carrier, barrier, and device-bonding layer in a customized construction. Together, flexible and breathable backing materials help the patch move with the body, while skin-friendly adhesives are matched to the intended wear time and user group.
The intended wear time determines how these elements must work together. Lohmann materials cover sensor applications with up to 28+ days of wear and infusion sets worn for up to 7 days. Precision die-cuts, held to micrometer-range tolerances, support small device geometries and limited bonding areas, while integrated membranes, electrodes, or printed electronics can add further functions to the finished component.
What the user does not see
What the User Journey Reveals
For development teams, the user journey brings the relevant design conditions into focus: the intended wear duration, the device's position on the body, the skin types it must serve - from neonatal to geriatric-and the stresses it will encounter, including friction, water, knocks, and pulling. It also helps define the downstream processes, such as welding or lamination, that the selected materials and construction must withstand. These are the factors Lohmann explores together with customers when developing an adhesive solution for a specific wearable.
Once the requirements are clear, consider how the supply chain will affect development. Handoffs among a tape supplier, converter, and die-cutter can complicate tolerances, documentation, troubleshooting, and change control. Working with one partner for design, tapes, converting, and die-cutting under an ISO 13485 quality system can streamline coordination, shorten the timeline, and keep documentation more consistent.
Share Your User Journey With Us
Bring us the user journey behind your wearable, and we will help translate it into adhesive, material, construction, and die-cutting requirements. Lohmann combines design and development support, customized tapes, converting, and precision die-cutting from one source, with adhesive experts who co-develop solutions alongside your team. Learn more on our medical wearables page.
Meet our Health Team at MEDICA 2026, November 16-19, hall 12, booth 12D54, at the Wearable Technologies booth. Book a meeting at at our booth here.
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