Wearable Healthcare Devices

Alongside instruments used inside a clinic, a growing category of wearable healthcare devices now lets people track several physiological signals continuously in everyday life. These include smart watches, fitness-band style trackers (for example, Fitbit-type wristbands), helmet-worn impact sensors for detecting head injury, posture checkers for back pain, and even smart clothing or clip-on/implanted sensors. Fitted with small physiological sensors, these devices can record real-time data and transmit it electronically to a doctor or to an app on the wearer's smartphone - broadly organised around an activity-tracking function (covering general movement, wellness and daily routine) and a workout-tracking function (covering running, cycling and walking). As activity trackers, they commonly report the number of steps taken, distance travelled, calories burned, heart rate, changes in blood volume and capillary size under pressure, body temperature and sleep quality, and many let the user set and monitor progress toward personal goals for body weight, blood glucose, blood pressure, sleep duration and water intake. Because they collect data passively and continuously rather than …