Wearable devices could help detect early signs of COVID-19, heart conditions, study suggests

New Delhi: Wearable devices that track one’s physical activity, such as smartwatches, could help detect early signs of disease, including COVID-19, heart conditions and falls, a new study has suggested.

Researchers from the University of South Australia reviewed 28 studies, including 12 lakh participants, and found that smartwatches and activity trackers could correctly identify COVID-19 status in 88 out of 100 people, similar to results from rapid screening tests.

They also found that data from wearable devices could be used to identify atrial fibrillation in 87 out of 100 people, in which the heart beats irregularly and faster than normal.

Falls were detected in 82 of 100 people using these activity-tracking devices. The findings are published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research mHealth and uHealth.

While originally designed for tracking fitness and physical activity, including exercise, wearable technology now also displays blood pressure, heart rate, along with sleep quality, skin temperature, stress levels and more.

“Our systematic review shows that wearable activity trackers have significant promise in detecting COVID-19 and heart conditions in real-world settings, which has the potential to improve personal health monitoring,” lead researcher Ben Singh from the University of South Australia said.

The researchers said that majority of previous studies have looked at detecting COVID-19, with a smaller number of studies focused on cardiac conditions and falls.

Even as the wearable devices largely showed good sensitivity and specificity, the most promising results were found for the detection of atrial fibrillation, for which the wearables showed high sensitivity and specificity, the authors said.

Sensitivity and specificity are measures indicating how often a device shows true or false positives or negatives.

“The most promising results were observed for the detection of atrial fibrillation, with figures that compare favourably to other clinical tests,” the authors wrote.

“Wearable trackers not only empower people to proactively manage their health, but they enable them to detect health issues in real-time. This means that they can respond to any concern quickly, and hopefully avoid any serious health issues,” Singh said.