Digital Health Wearables Can Be Used to Detect Gait Disorders, Undiagnosed Diseases

Axial motor symptoms related to speech, swallowing, balance, and gait freezing, particularly in the elderly, can be diagnostic of a number of disorders but most physicians are not sufficiently trained to assess them. The notion that walking is a sensitive indicator of overall health status and that self-selected walking speed correlates with life expectancy in elderly persons was made in a recent medical article (see:Gait disorders in adults and the elderly). Below is an excerpt from it:...[S]low gait in elderly non-demented persons correlates more closely with the future emergence of dementia than subjective cognitive impairment....The causes of gait disorders include neurological conditions (e.g. sensory or motor impairments), orthopedic problems (e.g. osteoarthritis and skeletal deformities) and medical conditions (e.g. heart failure, respiratory insufficiency, peripheral arterial occlusive disease and obesity). Help is on the way. The diagnosis of gait or balance disorders can be programmed into the apps on smartwatches or wearables attached to the body. Smart watches can also be programmed to provide finger tapping tests to diagnose Alzheimer's disease (see:Digital Health Solutions in Detecting Alzheimer ’s Disease). Below is an excerpt from this article:Smartphone applications, wearable devices such as smartwatches and ring, and other consumer devices offer an accurate and convenient means of monitoring physiological changes associated with...[Alzheime...
Source: Lab Soft News - Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Diagnostics Health Wearable Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Medical Consumerism Medical Research Point-of-Care Testing Preventive Medicine Test Kits and Home Testing Source Type: blogs