Wearable Health Devices for Diagnosis Support: Evolution and Future Tendencies

Abstract

The use of wearable devices has increased substantially in recent years. This, together with the rise of telemedicine, has led to the use of these types of devices in the healthcare field. In this work, we carried out a detailed study on the use of these devices (regarding the general trends); we analyzed the research works and devices marketed in the last 10 years. This analysis extracted relevant information on the general trend of use, as well as more specific aspects, such as the use of sensors, communication technologies, and diseases. A comparison was made between the commercial and research aspects linked to wearables in the healthcare field, and upcoming trends were analyzed.

Advances in Respiratory Monitoring: A Comprehensive Review of Wearable and Remote Technologies

“…The cameras are versatile, they can monitor continuously, and interestingly, they allow the detection of breathing in several people at the same time, which other sensors normally do not provide. 1 Bluetooth low energy, 2 Inertial measurement unit, 3 Respiration rate, 4 Heart rate, 5 Heart rate variability, 6 Respiration volume, 7 Polyvinylidene fluoride, 8 Respiratory inductance plethysmography, 9 Body temperature, 10 ECG-derived respiratory, 11 Microelectromechanical systems, 12 Electromyography, 13 Machine learning, 14 Kernel Support Vector Machine, 15 Convolutional neural network, 16 Electro-impedance plethysmography, 17 Optical fiber, 18 Numeric aperture, 19 Plastic optical fiber, 20 Fiber Bragg Grating, 21 Magnetic resonance imaging, 22 Blood pressure, 23 Grooved, photosensitive, luminescent.…”

“…A few may be also obscured within the cardiac and sleep area group, but the respiration in these areas is primarily only derived from heart rate variability (HRV). Contrastingly, pulmonary event detections, encompassing cough detections and respiration rate measurement, as depicted in Figure 1b, target 22% of all research [19]. This underlines the growing demand and anticipated surge in respiration sensors in wearable electronics.…”

Assessment of a Functional Electromagnetic Compatibility Analysis of Near-Body Medical Devices Subject to Electromagnetic Field Perturbation

“…Other static but active implanted devices are proposed to stimulate or trigger an organ, as pumps, neuro-stimulators or pacemakers [79][80][81][82][83]. In addition, wearable devices, which behave as non-invasive tools in real-time, are available, allowing continuous monitoring of people under treatment and thus providing sufficient medical data to establish the general health status and, furthermore, a preliminary identification of the medical diagnosis [14][15][16][30][31][32]. Additionally, detachable and connectable smart sensing devices, which are also real-time health monitoring systems, exist for functional indications intimately associated with physical conditions.…”

“…Embedded and portable devices are often used for ongoing medical assistance or for diagnostic and monitoring purposes. The case of wearable mechanisms correspond to a passive programmed role as sensing functions, e.g., [30][31][32]. The wearable biosensors involved behave as non-intrusive tools allowing real-time monitoring of patients, providing sufficient data to establish their health status and can constitute a first diagnosis.…”

Privacy and Regulatory Issues in Wearable Health Technology

“…However, real-time health monitoring systems such as e-wearables also raise ethical and regulatory challenges regarding health data privacy. E-wearables collect, process, store and share a considerable amount of data, including in the cloud from where third parties may be granted access to it [2]. The biggest challenge is data privacy [3] as health data is sensitive and confidential by nature [4].…”