The Medical Wearables Market is Constantly Evolving

Wearable medical devices and smartwatches allow people to monitor their health constantly. Doctors and people trust them more if they feel their data is secure.

FREMONT, CA: The advancement of sensors and artificial intelligence (AI) has enabled millions of people to detect and manage chronic healthcare conditions and avoid serious illness with devices as small as those worn on the wrist or patches the size of a penny.

Globally, 320 million consumer health and wellness wearable devices will ship this year, according to Deloitte Global. Healthcare providers will become more comfortable using them as new products hit the market and more offerings hit the market by 2024. Healthcare professionals prescribe medical-grade wearables, typically called "smart patches," which are increasingly available off-the-shelf, including smartwatches, marketed to consumers and purchased by them.

A recent Deloitte survey found that 39 percent of respondents owned a smartwatch. People have traditionally used these devices to get fit, lose weight, and improve their exercise performance.

With new hardware, software, and apps, smartwatches have become more private health clinics, not just for monitoring running pace. Many smartwatches now have heart rate monitors, and some are FDA-approved for detecting abnormalities like atrial fibrillation, a major cause of stroke. These devices will allow consumers to monitor chronic conditions and detect symptoms of serious diseases more frequently with the advancement of technology.

The development of smartwatches is advancing quickly due to advancements in sensors, transistors, and AI. As an illustration, several smartwatches now come equipped with optical sensors that continuously track changes in blood volume and composition using a method known as photoplethysmography (PPG). Machine learning algorithms use data from these sensors to create and continuously improve algorithms that offer insights into users' activity levels, stress levels, abnormal cardiac patterns, and more.

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Blood pressure measurement can be made easier with the help of PPG-enabled smartwatches. Infrared spectrophotometers and Raman spectroscopy are other technologies designed to make blood pressure measurement possible. Chronic hypertension can result in heart disease, heart attacks, and strokes. Periodic blood pressure measurements will miss these signs. Hypertension affects 1.3 billion adults worldwide, and accurate, continuous, unobtrusive blood pressure monitoring could expand the smartwatch market.

The capabilities of the existing smartwatch sensor technologies are, of course, constrained by their inability to adhere to or penetrate human skin. Smart patches can help in this situation.

Smart patches are often small and undetectable, adhering directly to the skin, and are created mostly by medtech businesses. Some "minimally invasive" smart patches function as biosensors and occasionally dispense drugs using minuscule needles that gently enter the skin.

Smart patches are designed primarily for a specific indication, such as the management of diabetes, patient monitoring, and medicine delivery, in contrast to smartwatches which offer a wide range of health data and insights. Additionally, a wider range of technologies is used by smart patches. For instance, ECG technology, which records the heart's electrical activity directly and more precisely than smartwatches, is frequently used in smart patches that detect heart rate variability.

Smartphones and smartwatches continue to be quite significant. Smartwatch and smartphone apps integrate data from smart patches to send data to these devices for display and analysis. Doctors might view wearable health data on a patient's health record with the correct technology, including interoperability capabilities, and gain access to more comprehensive information to help with diagnosis and treatment.