Over the past two weeks (the third week and fourth week) we have discussed a lot in class about wearable technology and how it tracks your health and we also have discussed about gamification with fitness, where video games include physical activity. We discussed why people like participating in gamification rather than traditional exercise.
“Wearable Technology in Healthcare”
During week 3 and week 4 I watched a video Titled “wearable technology in healthcare” . This video went into detail to explain that wearable technology to improve health is one of the most significant trends in healthcare today.
The video further explains that this technology can be linked to electronic health records that doctors can see and it allows doctors to measure and track their patients heart rate, steps and health without having to be with them in person. This technology can also help doctors notice health trends in the patients population. The video also states that wearable technology can signifcantly decrease healthcare costs as well as improve preventative medicine
The video did a study on 900 people and asked them if they track their health on a health app or wearable technology or anything of that matter. The results came in and only a quarter of Americans are using a device to track their health. When asked if a physician gave them one would they use it, only half of them said yes. When asked if they would track their weight if it meant a lower health insurance 60% said yes.
To even further explain how technology in the health field has help doctors, the last part of the video explained that Epic and Apple signed a partnership recently. This partnership was signed because it meant people who use the Apple health app can have their information sync to patient portals, allowing doctors to look at how you have been before you even show up at the doctors.
This article talks about how the most important aspect for helping chronic respiratory diseases are exercise and physical activity. It is shown though that people who do have these diseases do not participate in physical activity like they should be doing. This article believes that video games that are active might be able t give an even more interesting choice instead of doing regular types of exercise.
In class we talked about how gamification can be more fun than the traditional types of exercise, it can decrease boring factor of exercising, and it can increase compliance.
This article states a meta-analysis comparing regular type of exercise to active video games and there were four different measures that were conducted. 1. Mean heart rate during the exercise, 2. Peripheral blood oxygen saturation during exercise, 3. dyspnea induced by exercise, 4. Enjoyment of exercise.
The games used were Nintendo Wii and Xbox Kinect. With the Nintendo Wii there were eight studies that were conducted and with the Xbox Kinect there were three studies. Five of the studies looked more into the small effects of one time bouts of active video games and 7 of the studies looked into long time effects after playing the active video games many times.
The results of this are as follows…
- When the heart rate of the participant was measured it was proven that there was in fact no difference between active video games and regular exercise
- When dyspnea was measured it also showed that there was no difference in active video games or regular exercise
- It was also shown that Active video games were way more fun and people enjoyed them more
In class we also learned that certain elements make the Active Video games fun. These elements include, music, points, leaderboard, rewards, and groups.
An example we talked about in class of Active Video Games is called MyoBeatz. This game is a music constructed game for neuromuscular prosthesis. This helps people who have had amputations, greatly improve and increase control in their new arms by improving the muscles that are left after amputation. They learn to do this by squeezing the muscles that are there to popular songs and music choices they prefer.
I have never heard of this before and I thought this was amazing and a great idea! Going into the health field as a nurse I hope I get to see more of these types of Active video games helping people!
RachelEschnerHealth 