Can Health Sensors Help Prevent A Coronavirus Infection?

It has almost become a meme to state that your smartphone is more powerful than the computer aboard Apollo 11 that helped men land on the Moon. In fact, your phone probably boasts over 100,000 times the processing power of that computer. Now, even laptop chargers claim to be more powerful than Apollo 11’s computer...

The computer in your pocket or on your wall socket will not land you on the Moon any time soon, but these comparisons do help put technological progress into perspective. Considering that an Apple Watch can detect life-threatening conditions like atrial fibrillation, while a Fitbit could detect a woman’s pregnancy; it’s fair to ask that with all these advances in technology, can’t your wearable detect an infection like COVID-19?

This is exactly what certain tech companies are asking and they’ve teamed up with researchers to investigate the possibility. More than just detecting such an infection, wearables can more effectively monitor infected patients or even reveal previously unknown associations with COVID-19. Without further ado, let’s see what promise those tiny computers hold in the fight against the novel coronavirus.

How to detect COVID-19

According to the WHO, symptoms of COVID-19 vary from fever through tiredness to shortness of breath. Some of the parameters of interest to medical professionals thus include changes in temperature, lung function and body fluid analysis for more specific tests. These are the measures you will find undertaken by hospitals around the world to identify those infected with the virus.

However, these parameters are measured using separate, dedicated medical instruments in a hospital. Reusing them or merely getting close to infected patients pose a risk to the healthcare workers as well as other patients in the same hospital. Newer wearables are offering an all-in-one solution that even allows for remote monitoring. Wearable manufacturer Life Signals is speeding up the production of its multi-parameter sensors in response to COVID-19.

Source: https://www.wearable-technologies.com/

Their single-use Biosensor Patch 1AX can record temperature, respiration rate, ECG, heart rate, and movement; with the measurements displayed in real-time to the user’s phone via an app. The data can even be securely shared online to health authorities who can remotely monitor at-risk or symptomatic patients. It is expected to be introduced in the coming weeks.

On the other hand, the company’s Patient Management Biosensor Patch 2A is expected to release in June. It focuses on monitoring recovering coronavirus patients by measuring and storing clinical-grade vital signs data including SpO2. This wearable ensures remote monitoring of the patient’s vitals in real-time.

Once affixed on the chest, Life Signals’ smart patches can be worn for up to 5 days and safely disposed of. This helps in reducing cross-contamination of healthcare staff, lessening the burden on hospitals with remote options, while allowing prompt action to be taken in case of deterioration noticed with real-time data.

Finding the unfound

However, the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine estimates that 5% to 80% of those testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 may be asymptomatic. This demographic is quite important because symptom-based screening will miss a significant chunk of such people. The latter will unknowingly pose a public health risk as asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19.

This is where wearables come in. They can potentially identify minute fluctuations to normal bodily functions indicative of an infection; even if the person does not show any signs of one. This has been the interest of researchers helping to track down COVID-19. Below we find three prominent ongoing studies exploring the potential of different consumer wearables.

1. The answer lies in the heart: the DETECT study

The Scripps Research Institute launched the DETECT study with the participation of owners of wearables from companies like Apple, Fitbit and Garmin. By opting in, the latter can share data about their heart rate, sleep and activity levels, as well as respiratory symptoms, medications, electronic health record data and results from a flu, strep or Covid-19 test.

The reasoning behind the study is that infected people experience changes in heartbeat, sleep and activity patterns; all of which can be measured by wearables. Monitoring the trends can spot an outbreak before patients overload emergency wards.

2. Deep breaths with the WHOOP

Researchers from the Central Queensland University Australia (CQUniversity) and Cleveland Clinic are turning their attention towards another wearable: the WHOOP. It is a fitness tracker whose accuracy to measure respiratory rate (the number of breaths per minute) researchers deem among the most accurate non-invasive methods to do so.

Source: https://www.cnet.com/

For this new study, scientists will analyze the fluctuations in respiratory behavior over time of WHOOP users tested positive for COVID-19. They will thereby assess if this method is a suitable way for early detection before those symptoms are detectable by other means.

3. One ring to rule over COVID-19: the Oura Ring

Another device sharing the spotlight is the Oura smart ring. It measures the user’s body temperature, sleep patterns, heart rate and activity levels. Its standout feature is its ability to measure the user’s body temperature continuously, uncommon in other wearables. It came into focus as a potential early COVID-19 detector after a user reported that the ring alerted him of an illness without him showing any noticeable symptoms.

Source: https://abcnews.go.com/

This prompted Dr. Ashley Mason, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, to study whether the Oura can anticipate the COVID-19 onset as early as three days prior to the onset of more obvious symptoms, like coughing.

Out-of-the-box solutions

The aforementioned studies are ongoing and show promise. However, it will take weeks before we can get conclusive results. Moreover, based on measuring parameters with wearables alone, we cannot detect COVID-19 at 100%. Other approaches could still determine previously unknown bodily parameters that could indicate early manifestations of COVID-19. And these studies are crucial for insights.

In a recent article, we discussed the unusual associations that A.I. discovered in medicine. A machine learning algorithm studied brain waves to identify the best antidepressant treatment. Another one detected Alzheimer’s from brain scans before the condition manifests. By feeding an A.I.-based algorithm data pertinent to COVID-19, we might discover associations we have not thought of.

This is part of the thinking of the free database with over 45,000 scholarly articles, relating to COVID-19. On top of making it a one-stop-shop for researchers to easily access these information, it also enables A.I.-based algorithms to easily mine for insights.

Startup company BreathResearch is thinking of applying A.I. along with clinical spirometry and lung sound analysis in their one-minute lung function test to detect COVID-19 early. “We think we can close some of the current gaps in treatment by enabling early detection before the disease becomes acute,” said Nirinjan Yee, Founder & CEO of BreathResearch. “By tracking high risk individuals and patients, we can provide real time data to patients and clinicians, thus minimizing time, travel and contact, and accelerating treatment time and effectiveness.”

At The Medical Futurist, we are huge fans of wearables and believe them to be the one of the pillars to make patients the point-of-care. With the pandemic, they have the potential to further work towards this concept of at-home detection and monitoring tools. We’ll be on the lookout for more conclusive evidence in their help to fight the pandemic.

Dr. Bertalan Mesko, PhD is The Medical Futurist and Director of The Medical Futurist Institute analyzing how science fiction technologies can become reality in medicine and healthcare. As a geek physician with a PhD in genomics, he is a keynote speaker and an Amazon Top 100 author.

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