Wearable devices have found numerous applications in healthcare ranging from physiological diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, hypertension and muscle disorders to neurocognitive disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and other psychological diseases. Different types of wearables are used for this purpose, for example, skin-based wearables including tattoo-based wearables, textile-based wearables, and biofluidic-based wearables. Recently, wearables have also shown encouraging improvements as a drug delivery system; therefore, enhancing its utility towards personalized healthcare. These wearables contain inherent challenges, which need to be addressed before their commercialization as a fully personalized healthcare system. This paper reviews different types of wearable devices currently being used in the healthcare field. It also highlights their efficacy in monitoring different diseases and applications of healthcare wearable devices (HWDs) for diagnostic and treatment purposes. Additionally, current challenges and limitations of these wearables in the field of healthcare along with their future perspectives are also reviewed.

For older adults, heart failure (HF) has the highest 30-day hospital readmission rate of any chronic illness. Despite research into strategies to reduce readmissions, no single program has emerged as sustainable. The purpose of the current study was to test a researcher-developed home health nurse HF intervention (CareNavRN ™ ) on 30-day readmission rates, HF knowledge, self-care, and quality of life (QOL) among 40 older adults transitioning home. Home health nurses received specialized HF training and visited patients once per week at home for 4 weeks. The control group ( n = 21) had six readmissions (29%) and the intervention group ( n = 19) had three readmissions (16%); however, the results were underpowered and statistically nonsignificant. Pre-/post-surveys demonstrated significant improvement in HF knowledge ( p = 0.043), self-care confidence ( p = 0.003), and QOL ( p < 0.001) in the intervention group. CareNavRN is a promising approach to improve outcomes during transition from hospital to home for patients without access to a comprehensive disease management program. [ Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 46 (2), 32–40.]

Heart disease, including hypertension, is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among persons experiencing homelessness (PEH). PEH exhibit a greater number of modifiable risk factors for hypertension than the general population and are challenged to reach optimal blood pressure control despite receiving medical treatment. This descriptive qualitative study used data collected from three focus groups to explore the barriers and facilitators of self‐management of hypertension while experiencing homelessness. Participants discussed co‐morbidity, limited food choices, medication issues, stress, and negative health care provider experiences as the biggest barriers toward self‐management of hypertension. To address the barriers described above, participants discussed strategies to manage their medications, healthy eating, exercise, social support, and reducing stress. Strategies for health care practitioners and shelter providers to reduce barriers to self‐management of hypertension among PEH are discussed.

Background: Most methods of evaluating arrhythmia knowledge acquisition are internally developed by nursing professional development practitioners and are institution specific. This approach has resulted in assessing nurses' minimal qualifications for rhythm recognition as defined by the facility but does not result in describing basic, intermediate, and advanced competency levels for practice. Method: This quantitative study with a convenience sample of 85 acute care nurses refined an instrument to assess varying levels of arrhythmia recognition competency for acute care nurses. Results: The final instrument, called the Cardiac Arrhythmia Recognition Tool (CART), consisted of 33 items divided into basic, intermediate, and advanced subscales, with an overall Cronbach's alpha of .84. Conclusion: This study significantly contributes to defining arrhythmia competency in nurses caring for electrocardiographically monitored patients. [ J Contin Educ Nurs. 2020;51(1):39–45.]

Heart failure is a chronic disease, the symptoms of which occur due to a lack of cardiac output. It can be better managed with continuous and real time monitoring. Some efforts have been made in the past for the management of heart failure. Most of these efforts were based on a single parameter for example thoracic impedance or heart rate alone. Herein, we report a wearable device that can provide monitoring of multiple physiological parameters related to heart failure. It is based on the sensing of multiple parameters simultaneously including thoracic impedance, heart rate, electrocardiogram and motion activity. These parameters are measured using different sensors which are embedded in a wearable belt for their continuous and real time monitoring. The healthcare wearable device has been tested in different conditions including sitting, standing, laying, and walking. Results demonstrate that the reported wearable device keeps track of the aforementioned parameters in all conditions.