Wearable health technology has been under development for the last few years, moving from basic fitness trackers to more advanced tools offering state-of-the-art health monitoring and medical insights. So much of the talk around potential of wearables has been centred on devices like Fitbit and Apple Watch that have excelled at counting steps, tracking heart rate etc. While healthcare is experiencing a new wave of machine learning and AI analytics solutions that can not only detect the earliest signs of diseases but also adjust their algorithms to provide personalised care, wearable devices are introducing changes as well.
Wearable Tech Through The Ages
At first, “wearable health technology” meant little more than fitness trackers, the devices that measure rudimentary biometric data like the steps you’ve taken in a day, calories burned, and the quality of your sleep. But with the rise of sensor technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and data analytics; the wearables have been transformed into sophisticated health monitoring and managing tools. They can now contain all sorts of crazy health tracking technology including vital signs monitoring, ECG and Blood O2, as well as stress levels and mental health.
For example, some wearable electrocardiogram (ECG) monitors can tell when your heart is in an abnormal rhythm and alert you to get help before symptoms that might be worse show up. While falling asleep, the band can track in real-time your heart rate and ensure you awoke next morning with an optimally timed vibration to wake you.
The FDA will like that point: this live monitoring also happens during all day and includes notifications for other important insights (such as, detecting atrial fibrillation which can bring on strokes), helping keep its presence elevation and establish it from run of the mill fitness trackers (read: not approved by FDA). These wearables could also track blood-oxygen saturation (SpO2) levels, an important biomarker for chronic respiratory conditions such as asthma or COPD and in monitoring COVID-19 symptoms.
Wearable Device for More Serious Illnesses
Wearable health technology can even reduce the frequency of chronic diseases and be quite game-changing. Chronic conditions like diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and hypertension require continuous monitoring and traditional care models are ill equipped to deliver the kind of real-time, ongoing care patients need. This is where wearables come in to play, which are the devices that offer 24/7 monitoring of health and let patients get on top of their health situations.
Wearable glucose monitors, for example, have the potential to be lifesavers for diabetics. Wearable technologies like continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) monitor blood glucose 24 hours a day — without having to prick your finger. These wearables—many of which sync with smartphone apps for real-time data, trend analysis and alerts when glucose levels creep too high or low—offer far more than convenient monitoring on demand. With this proactive approach, you can treat the disease earlier and minimise the chances of getting complications.
Wearable blood-pressure monitors are another up-and-coming modality. Often referred to as the “silent killer” , high blood pressure, or hypertension, has no symptoms. This will not only give the user a visual representation of their blood pressure over time, continuous monitoring may catch dangerous spikes in blood that could otherwise lead to heart attack or stroke if untreated. The devices, in turn, not only support individuals but they are also providing health care providers with important intelligence about trends in patient health.
Remote Patient Monitoring & Telemedicine
The COVID-19 pandemic, which has created the need for remote healthcare services, coupled with advancement in telemedicine only pointed out one thing: wearable technology can offer more than many think. With remote patient monitoring (referred to as RPM) rapidly becoming the new normal in healthcare we are seeing a rise of wearables that provide a real-time view of an individual’s health without having to make constant trips to the hospital for fear of leaving out some data. This is particularly important for those with limited mobility or in rural settings.
Patients with chronic conditions like heart disease or patients in the recovery phase of critical illness, also post-surgery are being remotely monitored by collecting data from wearable health-monitoring devices such as heart rate, oxygen saturation levels and respiratory rate. In general, Patients on RPM programs benefit in hospital admission readmission reduction, better patient outcomes and cost savings to healthcare systems. This allows physicians to provide early medical intervention where the data indicates alarming trends.
Mental Health Monitoring
Wearables have started to target even mental health in addition to physical. That is being extended to devices monitoring stress, sleep, and even physiological response to anxiety with the goal of tracking emotional and psychological well-being. For example, some smartwatches and fitness trackers may quantify heart rate variability (HRV), which is an important measure of a person’s stress status. Wearables are even beginning to incorporate AI mood tracking, giving users up-to-the-minute updates on their mental health.
As mental health diseases like anxiety and depression often go unnoticed until they have reached a severe level, this particular part of wearable technology is invaluable. By constantly monitoring themselves, people will manage to notice this and they will be forced to seek professional help much earlier.
Two Major Challenges and Ethical Considerations
Undoubtedly, there is a great deal of promise in wearable health technology — but it is not without its drawbacks. Data privacy and security are some of the main concerns. With these devices collecting sensitive health data, securing it from cyberattacks is paramount. Users have a right to strong guarantees that their personal health information is safe, but also companies need to be upfront about how they use data.
Wearables, moreover, have come under fire for their reliability, especially in a clinical context. For example, wellness trackers are good at monitoring general health, but may not be accurate enough to diagnose diseases — although the gap has certainly shrunk. There is also a matter of cross-segment accessibility; it generally appears that top clasp wearable type devices are expensive and could, in effect, consign the extensive socioeconomic gap between health care groups.
The Future of Wearable Health Technologies
There is a lot on the rise to bring bigger (i.e. more advanced medical diagnostics and therapeutic kind) aspects of wearable health technology into use in the coming months and years. As another example, researchers are developing wearable patches that monitor hydration levels and electrolyte imbalances or detect disease biomarkers for conditions like cancer. There are also new materials that can sense changes in body temperature, movement, and other physical information using what is commonly referred to as “smart fabrics” or e-textiles.
And eventually, you could use wearables to deliver drugs (like insulin for a diabetic) or monitor if your patient is taking their meds correctly. When wearables integrate the power of AI and machine learning, they can be used to predict future health related issues too before it becomes serious which therefore enable it to offer a very personalised healthcare.
Conclusion
Wearable health tech has come a long way from basic fitness tracking. And as it matures, the more likely we will be able to point to it and say it changed healthcare forever. Wearables are changing the way we look at tackling these health-related issues, from chronic disease management to mental health monitoring. Although the challenges surrounding data privacy, veracity and even accessibility are still a point of contention in Society, the future looks extremely bright for wearables in healthcare to improve patient outcomes for all parties involved as well creating more connected and efficient health systems.
