Medical Tech Outlook

Wearable gadgets have been increasingly popular over the last decade, with wearable technology being used to track physical activity, sleep quality, discomfort, and even gastrointestinal activity in the field of gastroenterology

Fremont, CA:Wearable technology enables continuous health monitoring, which can be used to diagnose and treat patients in new ways. Wearable technology applications in gastroenterology are developing, including wrist wearables, abdomen wearables, smartphones, mobile apps, and ingestible sensors. Wearables are changing medicine and healthcare by allowing for continuous health monitoring outside of the clinic. Devices that may be worn from head to toe and even swallowed are included in this wearables category. These devices monitor physical activity, sleep disorders, heart rate and rhythm, and, more recently, gut activity and gas profiles in patients with gastrointestinal illnesses such as inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome.

Wearable technology has emerged in the field of gastroenterology, with the potential to diagnose, manage, and possibly prevent disease. As technology advances, it will become increasingly important to categorize devices. Wearable data may be particularly beneficial in informing patients and doctors about the consequences of their actions, management, or clinical status. These devices should, in theory, provide data to aid decision-making and perhaps include built-in therapies.

Due to technological improvements and growing public health awareness, commercially available wrist wearable devices have gained some traction dramatically in recent years. Fitbit, Apple Watch, and the upcoming Amazon Halo are wrist wearable devices that attempt to provide real-time feedback on many elements of everyday activities such as steps done, energy expenditure, sleep hygiene, and time spent in various degrees of activity. They also offer customized goal-setting choices, data summaries, and visualizations via synchronization with mobile and computer-based programs, including health and fitness apps, as well as social network integration.

Then there's the electrogastrogram (EGG), which is a non-invasive instrument for measuring the gastric electrical activity of the human stomach on the abdominal surface. However, due to inconsistencies in results and signal distortions that make interpretation and continuous monitoring difficult, it is rarely employed. Recent research has demonstrated the efficacy of EGG as a non-stationary approach for distinguishing diabetic gastroparesis from functional dyspepsia patients. This non-invasive, simple-to-use method may enable patient monitoring outside of the clinic, as well as a better understanding of functional GI diseases and more effective screening, diagnosis, and management.

Smartphones are by far the most popular wearable device. Smartphones are one of the most potential platforms for mHealth treatments such as activity trackers, telemedicine capabilities, and health-based apps, owing to their growing influence. Remote patient monitoring (RPM) refers to digital tools that are capable of monitoring and reporting real-time data on patients' health activities outside of the usual healthcare settings. It is enabled by the integration of smartphones and mobile apps, remote sensor technologies like Fitbit, telemedicine, and electronic health records (EHR).

RPM is very beneficial for chronic GI illnesses like IBD and functional GI disorders. The patient's behaviors, which occur outside of the healthcare context and are often not effectively documented or measured, such as stress levels, depression, smoking, or medication adherence, have a significant impact on symptom flare risk and the therapies necessary to control disease. Patients with chronic GI diseases are great candidates for RPM because of these aspects, which could increase self-management, quality of life, and collaboration.