Wearable technology promises to revolutionise health care

#News(General) [ via IoTGroup ]

Some of them are more useful than others obviously but as our Technology Quarterly in this issue explains machine learning can filter a torrent of data to reveal a continuous quantified picture of you and your health.But for patients the innovation in wearable devices has just begun.

Individual firms may come and go but wearables and artificial intelligence look set to reshape health care in three big ways: early diagnosis personalised treatment and the management of chronic disease.Wearables can detect subtle changes that otherwise go unnoticed leading to less severe disease and cheaper treatment.When doctors can see into a patient’s body in real time all the time they can provide better care.

In a German trial this sort of monitoring of heart-failure patients reduced mortality and the days spent in hospital by a third.Some 80% of disease can be prevented by changes in how people lead their lives.Apps use small devices and clever tactics of the sort employed by a personal trainer or a shrewd spouse to get people to move more eat better and sleep more soundly.Continuous monitoring also shifts the balance of care from what doctors can do in the brief occasional office consultation to what patients can do for themselves day in day out.A diabetes-control app has been shown to reduce the cost per patient by $1 400-5 000.

Just how vast will become clearer as wearables create data leading to innovation.One in four Americans has a wearable device.Health data are valuable; they could be abused by device-makers insurers or governments interested in social control.A cottage industry that ranks devices and apps on say clinical efficacy and privacy is helping doctors insurers and governments sort good from bad.Rules are needed to make data ownership and use more transparent so that people understand and control what happens with their information.Patients’ data need to be tied into medical-record systems

Read More..
AutoTextExtraction by Working BoT using SmartNews 1.03976805238 Build 04 April 2020