The focus in wearable tech has always been on convenience. Check your emails with just the flick of the wrist? You betcha. Take a picture with the blink of an eye? Done. The least amount of effect executed to complete a task, the better. Now, wearable tech isn’t just about fashion and technical functionality.
Smartwatches like Pebble and Apple iWatch advanced the potential of fitness-focused apps. By providing a way of measuring calorie burn and health accountability, these applications have sparked the interest of medical specialists in pursuing similar apps for their patients.
This brought on the call for healthcare integration and health monitoring. Pioneers in the industry were imagining how much easier it would be if their patients could have an accountability and monitoring system that was tied directly to their chart. Patients could feel more relaxed knowing they didn’t need to keep a physical log of their health, and doctors could easily monitor their patients on a regular basis without taking away from their valuable office time.
Currently, the market is flooded with smartwatches and fitness trackers, but the recent shift of focus on healthcare is bringing a unique twist on what was once thought to be the industry standard. Let’s look at a few of the new advances in healthcare wearables and consider what we might see in the future.
Virtual Reality for Mental Health
The past few decades have seen a huge jump in the monitoring and researching of mental health conditions. This is great news for those of us that suffer from mental health disorders, and wearable tech has joined the mission in helping treat some conditions through immersive therapy.
Virtual reality headsets have been used for aid in meditation, PTSD and phobia therapy, and pain management for burn victims. Victims of panic attacks – when the normal anti-anxiety methods aren’t working – can put on a VR headset and find themselves in a relaxing environment; out of the one that was causing the panic. One study released in February 2016 from UCL and University of Barcelona found that VR headsets can help patients who suffer from depression “be less critical and more compassionate to themselves.” The potential for Virtual Reality treatment is exciting and limitless. We can only hope that the future of VR will help treat the growing epidemic of mental health issues.
Chronic Disease Management
Chronic disease is a growing problem in the United States. It is estimated that by 2025, over 45% of Americans will be suffering from a chronic illness. Luckily, this is where the focus of health-centered wearable technology has really been thriving.
For sufferers of diabetes, there is hope in the future of wearable technology. In 2015, Google purchased the rights to a glucose detecting contact lens that could monitor and send alerts via smartphone updates to the wearer on their current condition. This would make monitoring sugar levels exponentially easier, and could be lifesaving for the user. Doctors and sufferers of diabetes are very excited in the potential for this new patent.
The majority of chronic illnesses affect people over the age of 50, and the elderly are now seeing the benefits of wearable tech in remote monitoring of senior patients. This can help in early detection of heart attacks, strokes, and infections.
Aid in Rehabilitation
There is potential, and a growing interest, in looking at the future of physical rehabilitation through wearable tech; both in the sports industry and for more serious rehabilitation needs. Clothing infused with microsensors to detect muscle strain was created in 2012 for a study that focused on Neurorehabilitation, and this technology could be easily integrated into sports medicine or physical therapy. For more serious cases of physical injury, companies like Rewalk robotics and Ekso bionics are creating exoskeletal suits that give paraplegics that ability to walk again. This is a huge step in the right direction for paralyzed patients in improving both mental health and physical capability.
The Future of Wearable Technology and the Health Industry
Wearable technology integration into healthcare is a rapidly growing market. With this comes some concerns, but also anticipation in what it can bring.
For doctors and patients, there is a growing concern over data privacy. Despite the convenience of delivering results straight from the technology to the doctor’s office, wearable technology is still vulnerable to hackers. Due to HIPAA both the technology companies and the doctors have to ensure that patient’s records are secure and protected, which can be hard to accomplish on a mobile device.
Another unexpected development for the consumers of wearable tech is the beginning of targeted ads through online media, such as Facebook. Many users of the Fitbit or Apple iWatch are excited to share their success stories with their friends on social media, but internet marketers are using this to their advantage. All in all, this can be both beneficial to the user in providing helpful information – like local gyms or active wear – and detrimental to their privacy; especially if the shared data is related to their health care needs.
Overall, the future’s looking bright for healthcare wearables. Advances in the wearable technology industry are bringing along solutions to problems that were once thought impossible. As expected, there will be hurdles along the way, but the potential for a healthy future through wearables will be hard to ignore.
About the author:
Katie McBeth is a Freelance writer out of Boise, ID. She enjoys reading teen novels, eating mac ‘n cheese, and long walks on the beach. Her love for reading is only trumped by her love for cats, of which she has three. She also has a dog, and he helps keep her grounded. You can follow her animal and writing adventures on Instagram or Twitter: @ktmcbeth.
(author photo by Matthew Wordell)