What is Wearable Technology?
Wearable technology is now used as a term for a new generation of electronics that can be worn by the user and can complete even more demanding tasks. This includes smartwatches, fitness trackers, and other similar devices. The market for wearable technology has grown rapidly in recent years as more and more people are buying them. This has been driven by the rise of smartphones which have been integrated into many wearable devices.
Wearable tech nowadays includes smartwatches and fitness trackers such as Fitbits. These wearables are embedded with sensors that keep track of bodily movements, identify your vitals or help with location tracking. The future of wearables is a connected world. As the internet of things expands and becomes more pervasive, the number of devices that collect data, track our daily movements or keep tabs on our vitals is only going to grow. For example, activity trackers and smartwatches come with a strap that wraps around the user's wrist to monitor their physical activities or vitals throughout the day.
What Do Wearables Track?
Wearable technology is a relatively new field, and it is growing rapidly. It has many different areas of application, with the most popular being fitness trackers.
The Apple Watch 7, for example, monitors blood oxygen saturation levels, heart rate, calories burned and more. It also has an emergency SOS feature that can contact emergency services in the event of a perceived accident like fall.
The HeartGuide is a wearable blood pressure monitor that was launched by Omron Healthcare in 2019. It might look like a typical blood pressure monitor, but it does not require any cuff or tubing to be wrapped around your arm. The HeartGuide uses light waves and soundwaves to measure your heart rate and blood pressure levels without any contact with your body.
A continuous glucose monitor (CGM) is a device that measures blood sugar levels every few minutes. It can help with diabetes management.
The first CGMs were introduced in the 1990s, but they were bulky and expensive, so they weren't used much. In recent years, new companies have been working to make CGMs less expensive and more accurate.
Mental status monitoring is a relatively new domain and a field that is very relevant in a culture where Mental Health has been gaining more awareness. There are many factors that contribute to mental conditions such as stress, depression, and anxiety. Using data collected by wearable devices and processing them through algorithms, it is possible to monitor these conditions. The goal of these devices is to help people with mental health problems by providing them with an objective measure of their state of mind.
Wearable devices are now widely used in sports. They can help athletes or coaches to systematically manage athletic training and matches. For example, commercial wearable devices have been used to monitor jump load of elite volleyball players. These wearables can be used to track the efficiency and effectiveness of practices and competitions. Furthermore, it has been shown that these wearables are highly accurate. Hence, paired with data collected on functional movement, it becomes possible to accurately modulate the players practices to minimize injuries.
The Future of Wearables?
Given the ability of wearable to continuously monitor vitals and other parameters of the wearer, researchers hope implement wearables in emergency medicine settings to be able to detect health imbalances. One idea that is being explored is lining the gowns and garments of patients with wearable technology that can communicate information about the patient such as amount of sleep, quality of sleep, body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, position/posture, activity, and more. It can also be used to communicate information about the environment such as ambient temperature, air quality, and sense for toxins in the environment.
It might also be possible to use wearables to detect other parameters. One technology that is being worked on currently is a wearable that can measure hemoglobin concentration. Hemoglobin is an important molecule that transfers oxygen to the cells of the body and carries carbon dioxide to the lungs to be able to exhale it. Lower hemoglobin counts could be related to diseases such as Sickle Cell. However, current models of wearables that monitor hemoglobin are relatively inaccurate. This is a theme that is consistent for various devices trying to monitor different diseases. That being said, the hope of many researchers and doctors is that wearables will be able to aid in disease intervention.
