Thousands of labs all over the world are busy with something or the other to find a way either to reduce coronavirus or to treat it better. One such growing perspective of experiments is that smartwatches and wearables can be used to monitor the heart rate and the general body functioning. Smartwatches like Fitbit and Apple can be used to compare with the affected individuals. The person can be notified as soon as possible when there is a chance that the person will be sick.
Oxygen Monitoring, heart rate monitoring can be used and compared with the general trends during symptoms to warn people as early as possible. Professor ZahiFayad at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai hospital says that if we are hit by a different pandemic or another wave, these tools could be useful and have tremendous potential.
COVID-19 detection by Fitbit and Apple
Mount Sinai is currently reviewing the activity of 500 patients with Apple watches and checking for the accuracy with which they can deliver results. The University of Washington School Medicine is using Apple watches to collect data on oxygen and heart rates and study them for their applicability. Purdue University is researching with Samsung Galaxy smartwatches and comparing their accuracy and efficiency with professional electrocardiograms. Craig Goergen an associate professor at Purdue says that it won’t be possible to detect COVID-19 but the watches like Fitbit and Apple can definitely warn about an approaching sickness.
At Stanford Healthcare innovation labs many participants of this study have been notified and warned with the My Ph.D. app they have developed. 70% of the people warned about changes in their normal health were later tested positive for Corona. This smartwatch tech is proving very useful as the patient can be warned beforehand. Symptoms take 3-4 days to appear but the smart wearables can detect the smallest of changes in heart rate and oxygen levels making the treatment effective when started early.
The Future Of Fitbit And Apple
The study of around 5,300 participants began in March 2020 and those who were infected were noticed to have changes in heart rate and other health data which were picked by Fitbit and Apple smartwatches. This data collection needs to grow and is very valuable to predict and assess better every day. 63% of patients show changes that could be detected early and treatment can be started. Stanford is seeking more participants to make their data analysis more efficient and accurate. Smart devices make as many as 250,000 measurements every day and this data collection could be of great value to research. Monitoring is easy and very effective.
Fitbit is also conducting research with The Department of Defense and Department of Veteran Affairs and NASA. The tracking of heart rates and other body changes is the main focus. The institutesDETECT (Digital Engagement & Tracking for Early Control & Treatment) is conducting research with 36,000 participants. In Nature Medicine, the researchers published a report saying 80% of the time they could predict a COVID-19 positive patient.
The case of worry however is that the pool of patients is limited to the U.S and the people who can afford or who use these devices. To gather more appropriate valuable data, all kinds of population and from all around the world need to be tested. However, the main focus right now is to slow down the spread and keep working on these experiments.
The device and various apps they are linked with have a little and mostly primary data. Even so, the data is good enough to observe trends in the symptoms and warn the individual as soon as possible so that proper diagnosis and health support can be started.
