HI-TECH TOOLS HAVE EVOLVED TO SAVE LIVES
THE flurry of smartwatch purchases during Black Friday had me searching for my Fitbit.
I had stopped using my Fitbit due to a snapped band, which is almost irreplaceable – a silly design flaw! Needing another watch, I started investigating what to buy.
The always-on, always-connected world, has introduced biomedical possibilities via smartwatches. We can now use these digital devices to continually monitor our medical health. This introduces amazing possibilities to the medical fraternity.
Remember how your cardiologist performs an ECG to determine the state of your heart? This required a doctor’s visit. Now it can be done through your watch.
The Apple watch has reached cult status with its heart rate sensor and life-saving electrocardiogram app. It has already saved the life of at least half-a-dozen people.
Adam Love, 24, found his heart rate raced to 140 beats per minute (bpm) from a usual 60 bpm. A medical check found a hole-inhis-heart, a condition that eluded detection since his birth. To further espouse the digital world, his corrective surgery was performed by a 3D robot named DaVinci!
Kevin Pearson, 52, was reading a book, a sedentary activity, while waiting for his dad at hospital. His watch urgently beeped informing him of irregular heartbeat of 161 bpm. It helped that he was at a hospital and he shyly asked for a quick checkup blaming his watch! The intrigued medic examined him and discovered an abnormal heart condition called atrial fibrillation, which could have been fatal!
Ed Dentel, 46, experimented with his Apple and downloaded the ECG app, which promptly went ballistic.
He ignored it. The next day the watch again reacted. He finally went to the doctor, who informed him that the device had saved his life!
The Apple’s fall detector mode also saved Toralv Ostvang’s life when he fell in his bathroom – it automatically called emergency services when he didn’t move for a minute. Paramedics saved the unconscious patient.
The original goal of smartwatches was behavioural to motivate people to improve their fitness and health. These devices have since evolved into a technology arsenal with GPS devices, cellphones, surveillance cameras and the Internet of Things.
As Hauser of the New York Times asserts, “The devices have a unique front-row seat to their hosts’ lives, documenting mundane and perilous encounters as they record heartbeats, sleeping patterns and physical exertion.”
The Fitbit has now become a silent FactByte as the not-solucky Jane Slater’s now very much ex-boyfriend discovered. She relates on Twitter that her boyfriend bought her a Fitbit and they synced and linked their respective devices to motivate and keep track of each other. This naturally implied location tracking and movement as well.
He was not at home at 4am one morning yet his physical activity was spiking on the app. This was not quite the syncing Slater had in mind and she found he was cheating on her. As Slater expanded “Spoiler alert: he was not in class at 4am”, either. Did his luck time out?
FBI investigators examined geolocated and time-lined data from the Fitbit of student Mollie Tibbetts, 20, who went missing for a month before her body was discovered. Surveillance video led them to a 24-year-old man who was charged with murder.
A Fitbit’s unique proximity on Connie Dabate’s wrist rendered it a silent witness which recorded the final and eventual fatal moments of her murder in the US. Her husband blamed an intruder. But the Fitbit data correctly fingered her husband.
The human ability to ingeniously repurpose and ever expand on the functionality of new technology continues to inspire and confound us.