Advances in wearable technology and its medical applications

Abstract

The concept of monitoring individuals in the home and community settings was introduced more than 50 years ago, when Holter monitoring was proposed (in the late 1940s) and later adopted (in the 1960s) as a clinical tool. However, technologies to fully enable such vision were lacking and only sporadic and rather obtrusive monitoring techniques were available for several decades. Over the past decade, we have witnessed a great deal of progress in the field of wearable sensors and systems. Advances in this field have finally provided the tools to implement and deploy technology with the capabilities required by researchers in the field of patients' home monitoring. These technologies provide the tools to achieve early diagnosis of diseases such as congestive heart failure, prevention of chronic conditions such as diabetes, improved clinical management of neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson's disease, and the ability to promptly respond to emergency situations such as seizures in patients with epilepsy and cardiac arrest in subjects undergoing cardiovascular monitoring. Current research efforts are focused on the development of systems enabling clinical applications. The current focus on developing and deploying wearable systems targeting specific clinical applications has the potential of leading to clinical adoption within the next five to ten years.