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...[Alzheimer's Disease]. Many of these technologies have been clinically validated to measure [these] vital functions that are impaired in AD patients and new devices are emerging rapidly....Sensors within smartphones, watches, and other wearables provide accurate data regarding the patient’s gait, offering a way to continuously monitor one’s walking habits. This information could be enhanced even further with contact sensors in a shoe or sock that provide pressure readings.
Loss of fine motor control is another strong indicator of AD, with finger tapping speed and tracing accuracy being cited as being tethered to early disease symptoms....This tapping speed typically decreases with age, however the speed decreases much more rapidly after onset of AD. These tapping tests have already been incorporated into smartphone apps with strong patient adherence, focusing mainly on patients with Parkinson’s disease.
This note is merely a teaser to suggest that we have barely tapped the potential of health wearables to monitor our health status and suggest diagnoses on this basis. I have blogged extensively about health wearables in the past because I think that they have the capacity to revolutionize the first tier of healthcare and empower consumers to take a more active role in their own wellness (see, for example: Is Healthcare Ready to Embrace the Consumer "Wearable" Revolution?; Status Reports and Hospital Referrals from Wearable Health Ecosystems; Alphabet Makes Offer to Acquire Wearable Device Maker Fitbit; Sony Develops Health Wearable Providing Connectivity, Stipulating That It's Not a Smartwatch).
What's remarkable about this note is that it's well documented in the medical literature that gait analysis can foretell Alzheimer's diseases and other neurologic problems. However, most physicians are not trained to do so or don't have a special device to analyze gait. This means that we are now embarking on a future whereby features on our wearable health ecosystems can perform diagnostic tests not readably available from a physician (see: The Evolution of "Wearable Health Ecosystems" and Associated Partnerships).
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