ESC Working Group on e-Cardiology Position Paper: Use of Commercially Available Wearable Technology for Heart Rate and Activity Tracking in Primary and Secondary Cardiovascular Prevention

Commercially available health technologies such as smartphones and smartwatches, activity trackers and eHealth applications, commonly referred to as wearables, are increasingly available and used both in the leisure and healthcare sector for pulse and fitness/ activity tracking. The aim of the Position Paper is to identify specific barriers and knowledge gaps for the use of wearables, in particular for heart rate and activity tracking, in clinical cardiovascular healthcare to support their implementation into clinical care. The widespread use of heart rate and fitness tracking technologies provides unparalleled opportunities for capturing physiological information from large populations in the community, which has previously only been available in patient populations in the setting of healthcare provision. The availability of low-cost and high-volume physiological data from the community also provides unique challenges. While the number of patients meeting healthcare providers with data from wearables is rapidly growing, there are at present no clinical guidelines on how and when to use data from wearables in primary and secondary prevention. Technical aspects of heart rate tracking especially during activity need to be further validated. How to analyze, translate, and interpret large datasets of information into clinically applicable recommendations needs further consideration. While the current users of wearable technologies tend to be young, healthy and in the higher sociodemographic strata, wearables could potentially have a greater utility in the elderly and higher risk population. Wearables may also provide a benefit through increased health awareness, democratization of health data and patient engagement. Use of continuous monitoring may provide opportunities for detection of risk factors and disease development earlier in the causal pathway, which may provide novel applications in both prevention and clinical research. However, wearables may also have potential adverse consequences due to unintended modification of behaviour, uncertain use and interpretation of large physiological data, a possible increase in social inequality due to differential access and technological literacy, challenges with regulatory bodies and privacy issues. In the present position paper, current applications as well as specific barriers and gaps in knowledge are identified and discussed in order to support the implementation of wearable technologies from gadget-ology into clinical cardiology

Automatic Performance Status Evaluation and Physical Activity Recognition in Cancer Patients for Medical Diagnosis Assistance

Sobresaliente (10)The evaluation of cancer patients’ recovery is still under a big grade of subjectivity from the physicians’ diagnoses. Different systems have been successfully implemented for general physical activity evaluation, nonetheless there is still a big leap of improvement into Performance Status (PS) evaluation with ECOG and Karnofsky’s Performance Status (KPS) scores. In this project an automatic system for patients’ biomonitoring based on Android technology with smartphones and wearables has been designed. As a result, objective data is provided for the oncologists’ diagnoses along with new algorithms for physical activity and PS assessment, having the latter applied to ECOG and KPS no precedent known. Furthermore, the basics for prospective implementation of gamification has been designed for boosting patients’ motivation in their recovery.La evaluación de la recuperación de pacientes con cáncer está caracterizada por un alto grado de subjetividad en los diagnósticos del personal médico. Se han implementado con éxito diferentes sistemas para la evaluación de la actividad fı́sica, sin embargo, aún existe un amplio margen de evolución dentro de la medida de la capacidad funcional con las escalas ECOG y de Karnofsky. En este proyecto se ha diseñado un sistema automático para la biomonitorización de pacientes basado en tecnologı́a Android con smartphones y wearables. Con esto se provee a los oncólogos de datos objetivos para sus diagnósticos junto con nuevos algoritmos para la evaluación de la actividad fı́sica y la capacidad funcional, estos últimos aplicados a ECOG y la escala de Karnofsky sin precedente alguno. Además, se han sentado las bases y el diseño de una futura implementación de gamificación para favorecer la motivación del paciente en su recuperación.Beca Iniciación a la Investigación de la Universidad de GranadaDepartamento de Arquitectura y Tecnología de Computadores, Universidad de Granad

Análisis de aplicaciones móviles para el control del ritmo cardíaco

Este trabajo fin de grado (TFG) tiene como objetivo realizar un análisis del estado actual de las aplicaciones móviles destinadas al control del ritmo cardíaco. Para este propósito, se ha hecho un estudio en dos campos. En primer lugar se han revisado las fuentes literarias que versan sobre todo lo relacionado con lo anteriormente expuesto: control del ritmo cardiaco con dispositivos móviles, técnicas de extracción del ritmo cardíaco, algoritmos de procesamiento de la señal para la obtención del ritmo cardíaco, comparativas de aplicaciones comerciales destinadas a tal propósito, comparativas y validez de estas técnicas frente a técnicas tradicionales de medición del ritmo cardíaco, etc. En segundo lugar, de igual modo, se ha realizado también una búsqueda de las aplicaciones móviles disponibles para este cometido en las dos principales tiendas de aplicaciones hoy en día, Google Play eiTunes Store, las cuales hacen referencia a sistemas Android e iOS respectivamente. También, aunque ya en desuso, se ha incluido el sistema operativo Windows Phone.Grado en Ingeniería de Tecnologías de Telecomunicació

Integration of the health monitoring system with IoT application in sports technology: a review

Nowadays, monitoring health systems in robust technology has been extensively applied in the sports field. Even though massive utilization of wearable device technologies aims to quantify athlete performance, inconsistent performance still exists between training sessions and competition. The rigorous discussion about the latest research in monitoring technological systems will help trainers obtain accurate data about athlete performance. This paper focuses on the athlete monitoring system in terms of psychological and physiological parameters and applications in individual sports based on Internet of Things (IoT) Technology. The study incorporates three factors: the parameters that affect athlete performance, multiple device sensors in sports health monitoring, and IoT technology’s application for athletes. Based on analysis and observation, efficient sports health monitoring can effectively enhance athlete performance in physiological and psychological conditions. An IoT system encompasses four main aspects: sensing, networking, data processing and application layer. These aspects provide real-time information on the athlete’s body condition during training and games. Therefore, this monitoring system greatly assists coaches in designing practical training and activities for athletes. It is highlighted that wearable health monitoring systems by IoT technology will be further built based on athlete requirements

Wearable and app-based resilience modelling in employees:exploring the possibilities to model psychological resilience using wearable-measured heart rate variability and sleep

Stress has a major impact on both an individual and a societal level. Early recognition of the negative impact of stress or reduced resilience can be used in personalized interventions that enable the user to break the identified pattern through timely feedback, and thus limit the emergence of stress-related problems. The emergence of wearable sensor technology makes it possible to continuously monitor relevant behavioral and physical parameters such as sleep and heart rate variability (HRV). Sleep and HRV have been linked to stress and resilience in population studies, but knowledge on whether these relationships also apply within individuals, which is necessary for the aforementioned personalization, is lacking. This thesis introduces a cyclical conceptual model for resilience and four observational studies that test relationships between sleep, HRV and subjective resilience-related outcomes within participants using different types of data analysis at different timeframes. The relationships from the conceptual model and the related hypotheses are broadly confirmed in these studies. Participants tended to have more favorable subjective stress- and resilience-related outcomes on days with a relatively high resting HRV or long total sleep duration. Also, having a resting HRV that fluctuates relatively little from day to day was related to less stress and somatization. However, the strength of the relationships found was modest. The current findings can therefore not yet be directly implemented to initiate meaningful feedback, but they do provide starting points for future research and take a relevant step towards the possible future development of automated resilience interventions

Accuracy and Precision of Wearable Devices for Real-Time Monitoring of Swimming Athletes

none4noNowadays, the use of wearable devices is spreading in different fields of application, such as healthcare, digital health, and sports monitoring. In sport applications, the present trend is to continuously monitor the athletes’ physiological parameters during training or competitions to maximize performance and support coaches. This paper aims to evaluate the performances in heart rate assessment, in terms of accuracy and precision, of both wrist-worn and chest-strap commercial devices used during swimming activity, considering a test population of 10 expert swimmers. Three devices were employed: Polar H10 cardiac belt, Polar Vantage V2, and Garmin Venu Sq smartwatches. The former was used as a reference device to validate the data measured by the two smartwatches. Tests were performed both in dry and wet conditions, considering walking/running on a treadmill and different swimming styles in water, respectively. The measurement accuracy and precision were evaluated through standard methods, i.e., Bland–Altman plot, analysis of deviations, and Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Results show that both precision and accuracy worsen during swimming activity (with an absolute increase of the measurement deviation in the range of 13–56 bpm for mean value and 49–52 bpm for standard deviation), proving how water and arms movement act as relevant interference inputs. Moreover, it was found that wearable performance decreases when activity intensity increases, highlighting the need for specific research for wearable applications in water, with a particular focus on swimming-related sports activitiesCosoli, Gloria; Antognoli, Luca; Veroli, Valentina; Scalise, LorenzoCosoli, Gloria; Antognoli, Luca; Veroli, Valentina; Scalise, Lorenz