SECTOR FOCUS WEARABLES
the darker end of the Fitzpatrick scale,
which is used to gauge these tones,
suffer from noise and have to be
backed up with a contact sensor.
The ‘Holy Grail’
However, there is one parameter
that eludes a contactless system
and is problematic even for low-cost
wearables.
“Blood pressure is the holy grail
for contactless. But we think our rig
is sufficiently advanced to be able to
work on cracking that,” Finn says.
But five out of six may be good
enough to justify bedside contactless
monitoring with the remaining elusive
parameter handled using regular
measurements with a standard
cuff or a wearable sensor. Even
for wearables, blood pressure is a
problem without the pressurised cuff,
which would be highly intrusive in a
continuously worn device.
Researchers have proposed a
number of systems that use the same
kind of pulse reading at the wrist or
from a fingertip as that used for heartrate
to try to infer blood pressure.
Systems tend to be sensitive to
body position and Omron claims to
have overcome the problems with a
wrist-worn smartwatch but it uses a
miniature form of inflatable cuff.
For longer-term care, the cost of
wearables becomes far less of an
issue and the market increasingly
overlaps with consumer-grade
wellness monitors, from FitBits to
dedicated sensors for monitoring
sleep quality, glucose levels and other
specific needs.
Suppliers such as CarePredict and
Owlytics see wearables as important
tools for monitoring the condition of
residents in long-term care homes.
CarePredict’s design, for example,
works together with fixed infrared
emitters detected by the wearables
to help locate each resident as they
move around.
In the shorter term, the Covid-
19 pandemic has focused attention
on what might be possible with
consumer-grade devices. Although it
is unclear what value they will bring to
epidemic control and the healthcare
services in charge of the response,
a number of institutions around the
world are recruiting users of fitness
and wellness wearables with some
focusing on clinical-grade devices.
Germany which is already operating
a widespread tracking system based
on clinical tests is looking to expand
its ability to plan by accessing fitnesstracking
data.
The Robert Koch Institute, the
agency responsible for disease control
and prevention in Germany, aims to
use an app developed by start-up
Thryve to collect data from popular
smartwatches and fitness wristbands.
Though it is starting with 5 per
cent of the state’s population of fewer
than 40,000 people, Liechtenstein
is to distribute wristbands originally
developed for pregnant women to help
monitor temperature, breathing and
between Covid-19 infection and
symptoms that show up on wearables
are not clear but Victor Camlek,
principal analyst at Frost & Sullivan,
says the data collected is likely to be
useful. “Anything that shows changes
helps. It may not be clinical tool
and not able to provide a detailed
diagnosis but people conducting the
surveys can find different aspects
of the diseases they haven’t known
about before. We have been finding
that asymptomatic carriers are very
much a challenge so anything that
shows a difference that could be
warning sign will help. As we get into
the data analytics for this, anything
that provides accurate data will have
a place.”
Camlek says the use of wearables
to help in healthcare rather than just
functioning as fitness indicators for
users is likely to continue one the first
wave of the pandemic passes. Social
distancing may continue for some
“Blood pressure
is the holy grail
for contactless.
But we think our
rig is sufficiently
advanced to be
able to work on
cracking that.”
Jacqui Finn
Above: One
parameter that has
eluded contactless
systems and is
problematic even for
low-cost wearables
is blood pressure
heartrate.
In the US, Duke University has
kicked off a programme called
CovIdentify to try to align medical
diagnoses with longer-term data from
consumer wearables that might show
early warnings of infection.
Work at Assuta Hospital in
Ashdod, Israel is focusing on the
blood-oxygen sensors that are found
in a significant minority of wearables
and smartphones in the belief
that oxygenation shows a stronger
connection between easily readable
metrics and infection than other
readings.
At this stage, the correlations
time and hospitals and surgeries
may put much more emphasis on
telemedicine. “The ability to have
virtual visits becomes more valuable
for the practitioner. We don’t want it
to be a slam-dunk decision that if you
get sick you go to the hospital unless
you have a requirement for a critical
intervention. You can instead use a
wearable device to collect data and
use more video interaction.
“The pandemic has placed a
spotlight on telehealth tools that have
the opportunity to prove themselves.
The major problem they will face is:
will they scale? And how do we make
sense of the data they collect?”
www.newelectronics.co.uk 28 April 2020 15
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