5 Health Benefits of Wearables
Healthcare IoT devices like wearables help patients stay in touch with their health. Many of the things that impact patient’s most are the result of decisions they make every day like diet, exercise and sleep habits.
These smart devices can track and monitor various aspects of an individual’s well-being including heart health. The 5 Health benefits of wearables include:
1. Tracking your health
Smart watches and activity trackers are popular with avid exercisers, but they can also encourage sedentary people to get more movement into their day. They can offer more detailed information than just how many steps you took, such as your speed and the intensity of your walk, or how much energy you burned.
These devices can even detect if you fall, and notify your emergency contacts and 911 if needed. They can also provide you with real-time feedback about your heart rate, blood pressure and more.
Medical wearables can monitor your blood sugar levels, detect irregular heartbeats and monitor your stress level or menstrual cycle. They can even help you keep track of your medications. And with the ability to constantly track your health data, you’re able to be more proactive about your health and take a more active role in managing your condition.
2. Keeping track of your fitness
Many wearables are designed to measure data such as heart rate, calories burned, blood oxygen levels and more. This allows people to be aware of what they are doing, allowing them to change bad habits and improve their health.
Wearables like smart watches can help people be more proactive about their health. They can remind them to take a walk or get enough sleep, and can even provide motivation to meet these goals.
Medical wearables can also be more efficient than other devices, such as ECG monitors that require the patient to remove their clothes. They can detect abnormalities and alert physicians so they can respond promptly. This reduces the risk of serious complications and saves on healthcare costs for both patients and doctors.
3. Keeping track of your sleep
While fitness trackers are often designed to track things like steps and calories burned, they can also be used to monitor sleep. Many trackers can detect heart rate and movement in the bedroom and can send that data to a smartphone or computer.
But it’s important to take the sleep data from trackers with a grain of salt. Many of the devices tend to overestimate the amount of sleep you get, especially those that only track movement. Other devices, like the Go2sleep tracker, use a sensor in your ear to monitor breathing and heart rate, and can give you more accurate numbers.
But in terms of preventing chronic diseases, tracking your sleep can be a helpful tool to prevent or mitigate issues such as depression and anxiety. Good quality sleep is known to help with mental health, and getting enough sleep can even prevent certain types of cancer.
4. Keeping track of your diet
Whether through consumer products marketed as wellness wearables or more specialized medical devices, wearables can help empower patients to take greater responsibility for their health. For instance, patients may no longer need to book appointments with doctors or travel for them, thus saving time and money for both themselves and the health care system.
If you want to track your diet, there are many apps available for your smart watch or smartphone that can help you log and analyze your food intake. Some popular ones include MyFitnessPal, HAPIcoach, and Noom. For more accurate results, consider using a device that measures your metabolism. This includes a smartwatch from Garmin or Fitbit that can estimate calories burned by monitoring body temperature, heart rate, and breathing. The Oura Ring Gen 3 is another excellent option for tracking your sleep, readiness, and menstrual cycle.
5. Keeping track of your medications
Medications play a huge role in the treatment of many health conditions. Fortunately, wearables and medical devices are allowing patients to keep track of their medications much easier.
These devices include pedometers, sleep monitors, blood pressure cuffs, glucose-measuring devices, EKG monitors, and even skin temperature sensors. Some of these devices can communicate with your smart watch and send notifications to your phone when they detect a change in your health.
Using such devices will save time and money for both healthcare providers and patients. This will also help to prevent people from missing important appointments due to scheduling conflicts or unforeseen circumstances. Some devices can even make emergency calls from your wrist. For instance, the latest Apple Watch can alert 911 and your emergency contacts if it detects that you’ve had a significant or hard fall.
In addition smartwatches and wearables have the potential to revolutionise the way we manage chronic diseases such as Diabetes, COPD, and Asthma. By providing real-time data on vital signs and health indicators, smart watches and wearables can help patients better understand their condition and make more informed decisions about managing it.
For people with diabetes, for example, a smart watch could track blood sugar levels in real time and alert the user of any irregularities or necessary changes in insulin dosage. It could also be used to monitor activity level and report back to healthcare professionals who may adjust treatment accordingly. Similarly, for those with COPD or Asthma, a smart watch could measure lung function over time and provide warning signals when certain thresholds are reached so that timely, preventative action can be taken.
The data collection benefits, wearables can also be used to remind patients of when their next appointment is or to take important medications. This can help ensure that treatment adheres to schedule and reduces the occurrence of missed appointments and forgotten prescriptions. The ease of use also enables patients to more easily access medical support if needed, offering peace of mind that they are being looked after properly and give patients more control over their health with reminders for appointments and medications. Ultimately this will lead to improved patient care and better long-term outcomes.
In summary, smartwatches and wearables have the potential to become a powerful tool in managing chronic disease making them an invaluable tool for healthcare providers and their patients alike.
OnePhenix is the only IPAAS software that connects your wearable data to your healthcare professionals. www.Onephenix.com.au