Advances in healthcare wearable devices

TLDR

Wearable devices are increasingly used in healthcare to monitor and manage a range of physiological and neurocognitive conditions, with diverse forms such as skin‑based, textile‑based, and biofluidic wearables, and are also being explored as drug delivery systems, though challenges remain before they can be fully commercialized. This review aims to survey the current types of wearable devices employed in healthcare. The authors evaluate the efficacy of these wearables for disease monitoring, diagnostic and therapeutic applications, and discuss existing challenges, limitations, and future directions.

Abstract

Wearable devices have found numerous applications in healthcare ranging from physiological diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, hypertension and muscle disorders to neurocognitive disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and other psychological diseases. Different types of wearables are used for this purpose, for example, skin-based wearables including tattoo-based wearables, textile-based wearables, and biofluidic-based wearables. Recently, wearables have also shown encouraging improvements as a drug delivery system; therefore, enhancing its utility towards personalized healthcare. These wearables contain inherent challenges, which need to be addressed before their commercialization as a fully personalized healthcare system. This paper reviews different types of wearable devices currently being used in the healthcare field. It also highlights their efficacy in monitoring different diseases and applications of healthcare wearable devices (HWDs) for diagnostic and treatment purposes. Additionally, current challenges and limitations of these wearables in the field of healthcare along with their future perspectives are also reviewed.