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| Can smart watches and fitness trackers help detect coronaviruses? |
Big tech companies like Apple, Samsung, Fitbit smartwatches, fitness trackers and other wearable devices are growing to keep us healthy by monitoring our activities, and are also being used increasingly to monitor patient cases recently.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) is now spreading rapidly and the number of infected people increases daily, which affects the health system in most countries, as the lack of test groups can quickly determine the number of people infected and where the critical decision, the use of doctors, nurses and respirators has had a negative impact. And other rare care resources.
How can hospitals benefit from the popularity of mobile devices?
American hospitals have begun to search for new ways to reduce stress, for example: By integrating mobile devices to combat the spread of corona viruses, the following methods are planned:
- Track the spread of the epidemic across the country.
- Identify doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel who are infected with the virus as soon as possible.
- Monitoring cases of HIV-infected patients makes it easy to determine who should be hospitalized and when.
In the long run, there is an urgent need to stimulate responses to virus transmission and epidemics, which can lead to content tracked by mobile devices. How doctors use this data to monitor disease status and determine how to respond to disease and lasting changes in a timely manner.
Population monitoring:
A few years ago, researchers realized that mobile devices could be used as a tool to collect data from the public to track the spread of the disease. Now that two-thirds of Americans wear smart watches and fitness trackers, viewers can finally make a contribution.
For example, the Scripps Research Institute announced in January last year that it was developing a predictive model that analyzes undiscovered data to track seasonal flu outbreaks, such as: thousands of Fitbit heart rate users, bedtime, and activity.
Last week, the institute announced a larger study of mobile devices called "DETECT", which means digital sharing, early treatment and treatment monitoring to see where the coronavirus can spread quickly.
This is done by requiring volunteers to participate in research, wear smart devices to track heart rate, and download the MyDataHelps app to their data sharing devices.
In fact, scientists don’t need mobile devices to be smart enough to automatically detect the symptoms of HIV infection in people, but it’s enough for them to track potential changes in a large number of people. In a particular living area.
For example, if Fitbit or a smart watch detects a person’s heart rate is faster than the average person and the steps are reduced this week, this could indicate that he or she has a cold or flu. This does not confirm infection with the virus, but if the same thing seems to be the symptoms fade, and the number of people on equipment twice the original number, officials can conclude that the virus is spreading in the area, helping public health officials to act quickly.
UCSF also started another study called TemPredict, which aims to collect information from portable sensors. In this way, researchers can develop an algorithm that can predict coronavirus symptoms and thereby identify a person at an early stage.
Our research used a simple titanium ring that can be worn on the fingers to measure the time lapse between heart rate and pulse, temperature and rhythm changes, etc., and can be compared to the applications installed in the phone. Smartphones record and share data.
Only two groups of people are currently eligible to participate in this study: UCSF or ZSFGH health workers (whether or not they have oura ring) and older volunteers who own our Oura episode and are willing to share their information.
So experts hope that sensors that monitor advanced measurements like human body temperature and oxygen saturation in the blood will become popular with portable devices within a few years.