Let's talk about wearable medical devices

Top News Henan Market Supervision Weekly Reporter Hu Bingjun Yang Lu Correspondent Yu Dong

Wearable medical devices are portable medical or health electronic devices that can be worn directly on the body, and are supported by software to perceive, record, analyze, regulate, intervene, and even treat diseases or maintain health conditions.

The combination of wearables and medical technology makes it easy to detect human health and enables data analysis and feedback. Always monitor our physical condition, exercise status, metabolic status, but also let dynamic, static life, posture characteristics data, real-time monitoring of blood sugar, blood pressure, heart rate, blood oxygen, body temperature, respiratory rate and other human health indicators and basic treatment of the human body.

The real significance of wearable medical devices lies in implanting and binding the human body to identify the physical characteristics and states of the human body. With the rapid development of mobile Internet and smart sensors, wearable technology and devices have become a hot direction for product development.

First, the application field

Wearable medical devices are mainly used in health monitoring, disease treatment, remote rehabilitation and other aspects in the field of medical and health care.

The concept of health monitoring and health has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and the aging of the population and the shortage of medical resources have made medical and health monitoring pay much attention. The wearable monitoring devices on the market are mainly smart bracelets and smart watches, which have the characteristics of strong operability, easy to carry and beautiful appearance. The main functions are step counting, vital signs monitoring, blood glucose monitoring, energy expenditure and sleep monitoring.

Wearable devices for disease treatment are mostly used to treat rehabilitation diseases in the research and evaluation stage. For example, a wearable in vitro automatic defibrillator can be used in patients with high-risk heart disease to automatically defibrillate in critical times. Clinically, there are also many wearable exoskeleton rehabilitation aids, such as hand exoskeletons, upper limb exoskeletons, and lower limb exoskeleton robots, which can effectively help rehabilitation patients to carry out rehabilitation training and improve the effect of rehabilitation training.

Remote rehabilitation can not only guide patients to carry out family rehabilitation, but also expand the rehabilitation population, reduce the pressure of medical treatment, and control the patient's condition in time.

Common wearable medical devices in clinical practice include continuous blood glucose detectors, electrocardiogram detectors, pulse oximeters, blood pressure detectors, hearing aids, drug delivery instruments, defibrillators, etc.

Second, the main features

Wearable users "wear" for a long time, applying various sensors to collect users' in vitro data or physiological parameters to meet the needs of different levels.

Intelligent mobility effectively collects data over time and ultimately transmits it to mobile devices and network clouds. Coupled with the diversified development of wireless communication technology, smart wearable devices are more intelligent and mobile.

Human-computer interaction realizes human-computer interaction, collects and analyzes user data more accurately, accurately assesses the physiological conditions of users with technical support such as cloud storage and big data, and provides users with better services.

3. Common classification

Common device forms include headbands, necklaces, glasses, vests, clothes, belts, watches, bracelets, foot rings, etc. Among them, watches and bracelets are the most common, mostly used to monitor health conditions, such as exercise, sleep, heart rate and related parameters of the surrounding environment. In addition, there are a small number of bracelets and watches that incorporate advanced technology to achieve monitoring of blood pressure levels and blood composition based on optical sensors.

According to the classification of acquisition mode, wearable devices are divided into three types, including timed acquisition, collection when needed, and uninterrupted collection. This is mainly determined by user needs and application scenarios. The data collected by wearable devices mainly include physiological parameters such as blood pressure, ECG, heart rate, breathing, exercise steps, calorie consumption, blood, urine, tears, hemoglobin, white blood cells, etc., photos of various parts of the body and image data such as portable B ultrasound.

According to the functional use of the device, wearable devices can be divided into health monitoring, screening, diagnosis, treatment, intervention and so on.

Fourth, future development

It is undeniable that wearable medical devices are at the forefront of the health industry, but it cannot be ignored that wearable medical devices still have a long way to go from the exploration period to the maturity period.

First, although the focus of the development of wearable medical devices has shifted from fitness to medical treatment, this also means that wearable devices applied to the health field will be put forward with stricter requirements. Obviously, in terms of data accuracy, scientific identification of complex diseases, endurance and privacy protection, wearable medical devices still have many technical shortcomings, and the support technology required is not enough.

Secondly, "more early adopters, fewer users" is a true portrayal of the wearable medical device market, and it is also a common feature of consumers who have purchased wearable medical devices. At the beginning of the design of wearable medical devices, in addition to the need to reflect the technical advantages of hard core, they should also output the soft power with certain humanistic care.

Nevertheless, smart wearable medical devices have great application value in health management, and with the continuous development of 5G, AI, Internet of Things and other technologies, wearable medical devices have unlimited potential.