Wearable Sensors Might Alert Users To Sickness Before Symptoms; See What’s In Store

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What's next apart from the fitness trackers and smartwatches? Well, there are the wearable sensors. Talking about these, there might come a time when just like tracking fitness, spotting illness would be easy. According to researchers, users would be able to spot illness just like tracking their sleep patterns and exercise routines, all through the wearable sensors.

According to Reuters, these wearable gadgets gave one of the Stanford University professor an early warning of the Lyme disease. Interestingly, the warning of the disease came way before the Lyme disease symptoms had arrived.

Michale Snyder, geneticist, never complained of a common Lyme symptom, the bulls-eye rash. However, the wearable tech showed a change in his oxygen level and heart rate while he was enjoying a vacation with family. Finally, when suffered from a fever that led to the diagnosis of Lyme disease.

Saying wearables, the first thing that comes to mind are the step counting fitness tracker. However, it is yet not very clear if these wearable sensors at all help giving early sickness alert. Snyder and his team at the Stanford University have been conducting several researches to see how these sensors help or at all if they are able to give sickness alerts. According to the report, headed by Snyder, he said, "One way to look at this is, these are the equivalent of oral thermometers but you're measuring yourself all the time."

As per CBS News, several researchers also reported in the journal PLOS Biology mentioned that among the early signs of sickness, change in people's regular physiology might be an indication of an onset disease. These could be anything from a common cold, Lyme to Type 2 diabetes.

Interestingly, the growing interest of people to use the wearable sensors have been growing by and large. These sensors are also likely to become a part of the study of the National Institutes of Health's precision medicine research.

Now, even though the finding of the research has been quite amazing, Dr. Atul Butte from University of California had requested everyone not to depend on the wearable sensors completely. The study was experimental and needs more proof to support it.