Smart rings and other wearable health devices can help keep you in tip-top shape by tracking your activities and vital statistics.
But these gadgets don’t just tell you about your biometric information. The main benefit of digital health trackers is the enhanced control you get over your health and wellbeing.
Modern wearable technology capitalizes on usability. Known more casually as wearables, these are “seamlessly embedded portable computers…worn on the body,” explains a paper published in PubMed Central.
These come in different forms, including smart jewelry — such as rings and watches — fitness trackers, web-enabled glasses, and Bluetooth headsets. Most of these pieces are connected to the internet, enabling you, the user, to sync the data gathered with other devices, such as your smartphone or laptop.
A subset of these devices is made up of health wearables, which use embedded sensors to track and monitor different health metrics, such as glucose levels, blood pressure, and sleep patterns. It’s no wonder that according to data on the healthcare industry, by 2028, wearable technology in healthcare is projected to earn a revenue of USD69.2 billion.
Smart rings and other wearable healthcare devices can monitor numerous key health metrics, including heart rate, blood oxygen levels, body temperature, stress levels, and sleep patterns. They can count calories burned, steps taken, and distance travelled.
5 Benefits of Wearable Technology in Healthcare
Smart rings and glasses, Fitbits, glucose monitors, and sensors for stroke patients — these are just some of the wearable devices technology has created to better care for patients, and people who don’t want to be patients. To use these devices properly, and to their full potential, helps raise the bar in modern healthcare.
Maximize these wearables by learning how exactly they can support your journey to becoming a healthier, happier you.
Early Disease Detection
The regular and rapid development of healthcare technology brings many opportunities for early detection of diseases, including cancer. With their highly sensitive sensors, wearables can detect subtle changes in health patterns, which can lead to early intervention. That is a big part of cancer treatment.
Healthcare experts, in a study entitled A roadmap for the early detection and diagnosis of cancer, strongly affirm the advantages of early detection.
“Patients diagnosed with cancer at an early stage have the best chance of curative treatment and long-term survival,” they write. According to the study, when diagnosed at stage 1, 57 percent of people with lung cancer survive for at least five years or more; only three percent of those diagnosed at stage 4 live for five more years.
Wearables can detect specific cancer biomarkers that can be found in sweat, body fluids, even tissue conductivity. These devices can also analyze data patterns to let their users know about any anomalies that may suggest cancer.
Personalized Treatment
Because of their very nature, the data gathered by wearables is specific to each user. These devices, such as smartwatches and fitness trackers, collect and store real-time health data. Using the information gathered, an algorithm then suggests a personalized treatment plan.
Proactive users, however, would do better to compile the data provided by their wearable and present it to a physician for a more comprehensive analysis. In addition to laboratory test and physical exam results, healthcare providers can use the data from the wearable to manage chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. They can optimize treatment plans, decide on medication adjustments, and prescribe lifestyle changes.
Also, since wearables are excellent data keepers, they can provide information that patients may have forgotten to share with their healthcare provider. This gives physicians a more holistic view of their patient’s health.
Enhanced Patient Involvement
Wearables are designed to present data efficiently, simply, and in an appealing way. Programmers make it a point to use easily understandable graphics. What use is information, after all, if no one can understand it?
It is this aspect that makes wearables so attractive to users. These devices not only track health markers, they also make it so that even non-medical people can recognize patterns and abnormalities in the data.
With enhanced understanding, users of wearables become more self-aware and can set better health goals. Patients can literally see the state of their health, and can even treat their wearables as a workout buddy. Since these devices can send exercise reminders, share nutrition facts, and track workout progress, users feel supported. It motivates them to be more active and invested in their own health.
Lower Healthcare Costs
The potential for lower medical bills is greater with wearables.
These devices empower users to be their first health check by providing data that would not have been readily available before. With wearables being able to detect vital signs at the most basic level, users no longer have to make expensive clinic visits just to get this information. This benefit is especially helpful for patients who find it difficult to travel to healthcare facilities.
Using the data they (and their physician) monitors on their wearable, patients can make decisions about their day based on their real-time health stats, provided by their wearable health device.
Routine follow-up appointments may also be reduced since wearables allow healthcare providers to remotely monitor their patients’ heart rate, sleep patterns, even missed workouts. The data gathered by health devices is wirelessly transmitted to a telehealth platform, a health app, or directly to the healthcare provider’s digital records.
A Healthier Public
In the early 2000s, when society rode the Tamagotchi trend, people went around carrying egg-shaped devices that contained their virtual pets. They had to make sure these pets not only survived but also thrived. On a small screen, owners had to monitor the state of their pets’ hunger, cleanliness, mental health, sleep, and discipline. It was shattering for a Tamagotchi pet to get sick.
Wearables today do the same thing, except that they monitor actual individuals with real health goals. When a device delivers data that reflects good stats, users are motivated to maintain their healthy lifestyle, or even surpass it with better health goals.
Wearing the Future of Healthcare
As technology in healthcare continues to bring improvements to disease detection and treatment, one of the greatest benefits of wearable health devices stands out: Creating empowered patients. Even healthy individuals with no immediate need for intervention benefit from wearables because these devices become visual representations of fitness and wellness goals.
When used to its full potential, a wearable can become like a virtual nurse, who tracks your vital stats and sends an alert if needed, and a cheerleader, who sets fitness goals and reminds you to drink water regularly.
DISCLAIMER
This article provides general information and does not constitute medical advice. Consult your healthcare provider for personalized recommendations. If symptoms persist, consult your doctor.
Photo by Amanz on Unsplash
