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Review
. 2018 Sep;15(5):429-448.
doi: 10.2217/pme-2018-0044. Epub 2018 Sep 27.

Wearables and the medical revolution

Jessilyn Dunn  1   2   3 , Ryan Runge  1   2   3 , Michael Snyder  1
Affiliations
Review

Wearables and the medical revolution

Jessilyn Dunn et al. Per Med. 2018 Sep.

Abstract

Wearable sensors are already impacting healthcare and medicine by enabling health monitoring outside of the clinic and prediction of health events. This paper reviews current and prospective wearable technologies and their progress toward clinical application. We describe technologies underlying common, commercially available wearable sensors and early-stage devices and outline research, when available, to support the use of these devices in healthcare. We cover applications in the following health areas: metabolic, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal monitoring; sleep, neurology, movement disorders and mental health; maternal, pre- and neo-natal care; and pulmonary health and environmental exposures. Finally, we discuss challenges associated with the adoption of wearable sensors in the current healthcare ecosystem and discuss areas for future research and development.

Keywords: digital health; longitudinal monitoring; sensors; wearables; wireless telemetry.

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Conflict of interest statement

J Dunn and R Runge are funded by the Mobilize Center, a NIH Big Data to Knowledge Center of Excellence (NIH U54 EB020405). M Snyder is a cofounder of Personalis, Qbio, Sensomics and January. He is on the scientific advisory of these companies and Genapsys. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. A wide variety of wearable devices facilitate personalized healthcare.
(A) Overview diagram of review paper showing major topics covered. (B) The three major wearable sensor types (red) and sensor grades (blue). (C) Wearable devices for use in metabolic, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal monitoring; sleep, neurology, movement disorders and mental health; maternal, pre- and neo-natal care; and pulmonary health and environmental exposures. IMU: Inertial measurement unit; CGM: Continuous glucose monitoring.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. The wearables landscape may impact their adoption in clinical care.
(A) Settings where wearables can provide or improve healthcare. (B) Flow of data from wearables to health decision-makers. (C) Areas of healthcare that currently existing wearables can target (some with strong evidence supporting their use and others are newer). (D) Challenges and limitations for the adoption of wearable technology in healthcare. (E) A single platform integrating wearable device data collection, analytics and intervention delivery will constitute a complete operating healthcare monitoring system.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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