Microfluidic Valve‐Integrated Garment for Smooth Sequential Gradient Mechanotherapy

Current mechanotherapy systems for at‐home management of lymphedema and deep vein thrombosis are limited by gaps between actuators and bulky electromechanical control units, leading to untreated regions and restricting use to stationary settings. A key bottleneck is that conventional designs require one valve per actuator, causing control unit size and power demand to scale with actuator count. Here, we present a benchtop study on a wearable mechanotherapy system that addresses these challenges through two innovations: (1) a monolithic sheet of overlapping soft fluidic actuators integrated into a garment to eliminate actuator gaps and (2) embedded microfluidic in‐line membrane valves (μIMVs) that dramatically reduce the number of required electromechanical valves. Overlapping actuators by 40% removes pressure gaps between neighboring actuators, enabling smooth, uniform gradient compression. We further demonstrate μIMVs (3.6 × 0.6 mm) integrated directly with actuators and combined with resistance microchannels on a chip to achieve gradient pressure holding (10–20 mbar increments) and rapid, uniform passive deflation (<3 s), overcoming slow‐throughput treatment cycles limitations of valve‐less microchannel designs while maintaining scalability. This miniaturized system enables a smartphone‐sized control unit, supports direct garment integration, and represents a substantial advance toward truly portable, patient‐centric mechanotherapy for circulatory disorders.