Background: Wearable trackers as research or clinical tools are increasingly used to support the care of older adults, due to their practicality in self-monitoring and potential to promote healthy lifestyle behaviours. However, there is limited understanding of appropriate data collection and analysis methods in different contexts.
Aim: To summarise evidence on wearable data generation and management in older adults, focusing on physical activity (PA), electrocardiogram (ECG), and vital signs monitoring. In addition to examine the accuracy and utility of wearable trackers in the care of older people.
Methods: A systematic search of CINAHL, MEDLINE, PubMed and a manual search were conducted. Twenty studies on the use of wearable trackers by older adults met the inclusion criteria.
Results: Methodological designs for data collection and analysis were heterogeneous, with diverse definitions of wear and no-wear time, the number and type of valid days, and proprietary algorithms. Wearable trackers had adequate accuracy for measuring step counts, moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA), ECG and heart rate (HR), but not for respiratory rate. Participants reported ease of use and had high-level adherence over daily long-term use. Moreover, wearable trackers encouraged users to increase their daily level of physical activity and decrease waist circumference, facilitating atrial fibrillation (AF) diagnoses and predicting length of stay.
Conclusion: Wearable trackers are multi-dimensional technologies offering a viable and promising approach for sustained and scaled monitoring of older people's health. Frameworks and/or guidelines, including standards for the design, data management and application of use specifically for older adults, are required to enhance validity and reliability.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.maturitas.2019.03.012 | DOI Listing |
Sensors (Basel)
January 2025
Research Centre for Biomedical Engineering, City St George's, University of London, London, EC1V 0HB, UK.
Over the past ten years, there has been an increasing demand for reliable consumer wearables as users are inclined to monitor their health and fitness metrics in real-time, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Reflectance pulse oximeters in fitness trackers and smartwatches provide convenient, non-invasive SpO measurements but face challenges in achieving medical-grade accuracy, particularly due to difficulties in capturing physiological signals, which may be affected by skin pigmentation. Hence, this study sets out to investigate the influence of skin pigmentation, particularly in individuals with darker skin, on the accuracy and reliability of SpO measurement in consumer wearables that utilise reflectance pulse oximeters.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMedicina (Kaunas)
December 2024
Clinic for Traumatology, Clinical Hospital Center Sestre Milosrdnice, 10 000 Zagreb, Croatia.
: The use of wearable fitness technology is a trend nowadays and has significant potential in promoting an active lifestyle among long-term care (LTC) residents. The objectives of this observational study were to examine the use of fitness trackers and smartwatches for monitoring physical activity and to analyze the relationship between the use of these technological solutions and the sociodemographic characteristics of LTC residents during the COVID-19 lockdown. : Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 198 LTC residents stationed in eleven organizational units that provide long-term accommodation services for older adults in the city of Zagreb in Croatia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiosensors (Basel)
January 2025
Department of Chemistry, University of Minnesota, 207 Pleasant St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
In recent years, the field of wearable sensors has undergone significant evolution, emerging as a pivotal topic of research due to the capacity of such sensors to gather physiological data during various human activities. Transitioning from basic fitness trackers, these sensors are continuously being improved, with the ultimate objective to make compact, sophisticated, highly integrated, and adaptable multi-functional devices that seamlessly connect to clothing or the body, and continuously monitor bodily signals without impeding the wearer's comfort or well-being. Potentiometric sensors, leveraging a range of different solid contact materials, have emerged as a preferred choice for wearable chemical or biological sensors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Med Internet Res
January 2025
Biomedical Informatics & Data Science Section, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States.
Background: Mobile devices offer an emerging opportunity for research participants to contribute person-generated health data (PGHD). There is little guidance, however, on how to best report findings from studies leveraging those data. Thus, there is a need to characterize current reporting practices so as to better understand the potential implications for producing reproducible results.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChronobiol Int
January 2025
Google LLC, San Francisco, California, USA.
Circadian rhythms are governed by a biological clock, and are known to occur in a variety of physiological processes. We report results on the circadian rhythm of heart rate observed using a wrist-worn wearable device (Fitbit), consisting of over 17,000 individuals over the course of 30 days. We obtain an underlying heart rate circadian rhythm from the time series heart rate by modeling the circadian rhythm as a sum over the first two Fourier harmonics.
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