Wearable Biosensors in Healthcare

The healthcare industry is one where doctors are under constant pressure to monitor and treat patients. It is obviously going to make life easier if there is an automated way in which a doctor can tell when someone under his care is about to fall ill.

At the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, researchers are looking at developing wearable biosensors which can tell you when you are about to fall ill. A gadget similar to the Fitbit or the Apple Watch would make it possible for sensors to track the physiological changes that indicate an onset of illness.

Essentially there are three main parameters being recorded and observed. These are the heart rate, the body temperature and the blood pressure of the person wearing the biosensor. A number of cardiovascular health problems as well as onset of infections can be easily predicted using this methodology.

A five month study conducted on human volunteers took more than two hundred and fifty thousand measurements per day. In a case during the study the biosensor monitoring was able to predict Lyme disease for a person much before any symptoms physically manifested on the body. While more studies are required this science project is bound to move things along for the better in the future.