A section on the future of digital health was presented by Mount Sinai researchers in the form of an Apple Watch.
The team’s Warrior Watch study is one of the first on wearable devices used to identify COVID-19 in humans. It appears that wearing such a device can identify the virus seven days earlier than current testing methods, such as nasal swabs.
This new method could pave the way for future diagnostic methods and could help track and improve virus management.
The team’s study was published in Journal of Medical Internet Research.
How COVID-19 Portable Devices Detect
During the study, which ran from April to September 2020, the team recruited several hundred health workers from Mount Sinai. These participants wore Apple watches that were related to their iPhone applications, using the application to collect and monitor their health. They also completed daily surveys to provide feedback on potential COVID-19 symptoms and other factors, such as stress.
The main focus of the study’s researchers was heart rate variability (HRV), which detects when a person’s nervous system is tense.
What the team noticed was that with this method of wearing an Apple Watch and closely monitoring the health of the participants, they could predict infections up to a week before traditional tests confirm the diagnosis.
Moreover, they noticed that HRV patterns returned to normal one or two weeks after diagnosis.
How they could be useful against COVID-19
By helping to detect COVID-19 earlier from portable devices, more people could isolate themselves earlier, thus reducing the spread of the virus in that crucial week before testing.
More important, however, is that this method can be performed remotely. No health care worker should be endangered by performing traditional COVID-19 tests, as the diagnosis would be anticipated and detected remotely and in a timely manner.
The team points out that it continues to collect data on how wearing Apple watches and other wearable devices can help discover the impact of COVID-19 on the health of health care workers and how factors such as sleep and physical activity are associated with the disease. .