Capitalising on Smart Wearables to Improve Health Monitoring

The video of this talk is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9GnXEexHD4 The increasing use of smart wearables provides opportunity to continuously track peoples' health. In his talk, Peter Charlton provides an overview of the physiological signals and parameters which can be extracted from wearables, and their potential clinical utility. The first part of the talk focuses on the engineering techniques used to process the signals monitored by wearables, and extract physiological parameters from them. Methods for estimating a range of parameters, such as heart rate and respiratory rate, are described. Approaches for improving the accuracy of parameters, such as assessing the quality of the underlying signal, mitigating against motion artifact, and using several techniques in parallel to estimate parameters, are covered. The second part of the talk focuses on the clinical utility of wearable sensors, drawing on real-life examples of how they could be used to improve health outcomes. Case studies from both the hospital and community settings were presented, showing how wearables could be used to provide early warning of acute deteriorations such as heart attacks, and long-term monitoring of cardiovascular health. Finally, Peter provides directions for future research and clinical evaluation of wearable sensors, concluding that the widespread use of smart wearables provides a new opportunity for patient-centred care