Wearable Fitness Devices Research Articles

Proteomic Characterization of Dermal Interstitial Fluid Extracted Using a Novel Microneedle-Assisted Technique.

As wearable fitness devices have gained commercial acceptance, interest in real-time monitoring of an individual's physiological status using noninvasive techniques has grown. Microneedles have been proposed as a minimally invasive technique for sampling the dermal interstitial fluid (ISF) for clinical monitoring and diagnosis, but little is known about its composition. In this study, a novel microneedle array was used to collect dermal ISF from three healthy human donors and compared with matching serum and plasma samples. Using a shotgun quantitative proteomic approach, 407 proteins were quantified with at least one unique peptide, and of those, 135 proteins were differently expressed at least 2-fold. Collectively, these proteins tended to originate from the cytoplasm, membrane bound vesicles, and extracellular vesicular exosomes. Proteomic analysis confirmed previously published work that indicates that ISF is highly similar to both plasma and serum. In this study, less than one percent of proteins were uniquely identified in ISF. Taken together, ISF could serve as a minimally invasive alternative for blood-derived fluids with potential for real-time monitoring applications.

“Social Networkout”: Connecting Social Features of Wearable Fitness Trackers with Physical Exercise

Despite widespread understanding of the benefits of physical activity, many adults in the United States do not meet recommended exercise guidelines. Burgeoning technologies, including wearable fitness trackers (e.g., Fitbit, Apple watch), bring new opportunities to influence physical activity by encouraging users to track and share physical activity data and compete against their peers. However, research has not explored the social processes that mediate the relationship between the use of wearable fitness trackers and intention to exercise. In this study, we applied the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) to explore the effects of two communicative features of wearable fitness devices—social sharing and social competing—on individuals’ intention to exercise. Drawing upon surveys from 238 wearable fitness tracker users, we found that the relationship between the two communication features (social sharing and competing) and exercise intention was mediated by attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. The results suggest that the ways in which exercise data are shared significantly influence the exercise intentions, and these intentions are mediated by individuals’ evaluation of exercise, belief about important others’ approval of exercise, and perceived control upon exercise.

Biobehavioral assessment of the anxiety disorders: Current progress and future directions

It is difficult to accurately assess and differentially diagnose the anxiety disorders. The current system of assessment relies heavily on the subjective measures of client self-report, clinical observation, and clinical judgment. Fortunately, recent technological advances may enable practitioners to utilize objective, biobehavioral measures of assessment in a clinical setting. The current body of literature on two of these biobehavioral tools (eye-tracking and electrocardiogram devices) is promising, but more validation and standardization research is needed to maximize the utility of these devices. Eye-tracking devices are uniquely capable of providing data that can be used to differentially diagnose anxiety disorders from both other commonly comorbid and misdiagnosed disorders. Both eye-tracking and electrocardiogram devices are able to provide change-sensitive assessment information. This objective, real-time feedback can assist clinicians and researchers in assessing treatment efficacy and symptom fluctuation. Recently developed wearable and highly portable electrocardiogram devices, like the wearable fitness and behavior tracking devices used by many consumers, may be particularly suited for providing this feedback to clinicians. Utilizing these biobehavioral devices would supply an objective, dimensional component to the current categorical diagnostic assessment system. We posit that if adequate funding and attention are directed at this area of research, it could revolutionize diagnostic and on-going assessment practices and, in doing so, bring the field of diagnosis out of the 20th century.

The Motivational Impact of Wearable Healthy Lifestyle Technologies: A Self-determination Perspective on Fitbits With Adolescents

ABSTRACTBackground: Considerable numbers of young people are not meeting physical activity guidelines. Wearable fitness devices can provide opportunities for physical activity promotion. Purpose: The aim of the study was to explore whether wearable healthy lifestyle technologies impacted on adolescents’ (13- to 14-year-olds) motivation for physical activity. Methods: The study was a mixed method sequential design. Participants were 84 adolescents (44 girls, 40 boys) from 6 physical education classes. Pupils were issued with a Fitbit to wear for 8 weeks and completed pre-/posttest questionnaires that assessed motivational regulation and psychological need satisfaction. Adolescents also engaged in focus group interviews after wearing the Fitbit for 8 weeks. Quantitative data were analyzed using a repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to explore differences between gender and time. Qualitative data analysis was conducted deductively using self-determination theory. Results: The quantitative findings identified significant reductions in need satisfaction and autonomous motivation and significant increases in amotivation after 8 weeks. Qualitative evidence suggested short-term increases in motivation through feelings of competition, guilt, and internal pressure. Discussion: Findings suggest that healthy lifestyle technology may have negative motivational consequences. Translation to Health Education Practice: Certified Health Education Specialists should support young people to personalize health targets in order to critically engage with normalized health targets.

Innovative Sensors Promise Longer and Healthier Lives: Signal processing leads to devices that provide faster and more insightful monitoring and diagnoses [Special Reports

Reports on new and innovative sensor technologies for the health care market.The health-care and medical applications sensor market is projected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 13.1% between 2016 and 2022, according to a report issued in March 2017 by the research firm Frost & Sullivan. A key factor driving sensor sales is the growing availability of consumer and clinical devices that use sensor technology to diagnose, monitor, and track disease and fitness. Within the next few years, an emerging generation of smaller, less expensive, and highly sophisticated sensors will find their way into a wide range of personal and professional devices. With more patient care moving out of hospitals, the use of sensor-enabled home diagnostic and monitoring devices is expected to soar, the report notes. The market for sensors used in wearable health and fitness devices is also poised to grow rapidly.

개인별 심박수 기준을 설정하기 위한 피드백-RFC 모델

많은 웨어러블 스마트 피트니스 장치들이 심박수와 관련된 서비스를 제공한다. 이러한 서비스는 통계를 기반으로 사전 결정한 고정 수치를 기준으로 이용한다. 그러나 사람들의 신체조건은 개개인마다 다르기 때문에, 모든 개개인을 같은 기준으로 적용하는 서비스는 신뢰성이 낮다. 본 논문에서는 사용자의 운동 능력에 맞추어 심박수의 기준이 변동하는 피드백-RFC 모델과, 모델을 구현하는 방법을 제안한다. 그리고 12명의 실험참가자들로부터 심장박동 데이터를 수집하여 모델을 평가함으로써 제안 모델의 효용성을 보인다. Many of the wearable smart fitness devices provide services related to users' heartbeat rates. These services use fixed standards which have been pre-determined based on statistical data. However, because body conditions significantly differ between individuals, the services applying fixed standards to all individuals are not reliable. This paper proposes the Feedback-RFC model which adapts heartbeat standards to individual users' exercise abilities and also proposes a method to implement the model. This paper also shows the effectiveness of the Feedback-RFC model by collecting heartbeat data from 12 participants and evaluating the model with the data.

The Impact of Technological Trust and Self-Determined Motivation on Intentions to use Wearable Fitness Technology

Exercise has many health benefits, however, not enough Americans engage in physical activity which may be due to a lack of motivation and knowledge of how to do so. Wearable technologies, such as fitness trackers, can ameliorate this pervasive problem. The aim of this study was to examine trust and motivation as predictors of fitness tracker usage across several devices. Moreover, we developed trust and motivation scales specific to wearable fitness devices to determine the extent to which these factors may relate to individuals’ desire for continued use. A Confirmatory factor analysis and Structural equation model analysis was conducted on the data. Our results indicated that: 1) both technological trust and self-determined motivation are significantly related to each other and 2) both users’ perceived trust and motivation of the device are predictive of individuals' desire for continued use of wearable fitness devices. Therefore, considerations of how the technology can be transparent to the user and provide motivational support are important design considerations.

Describing the User Experience of Wearable Fitness Technology through Online Product Reviews

Regular exercise has many health benefits, however a major problem in the United States is that Americans do not exercise enough to reap these advantages. Although there are many ways that one can be motivated to exercise, the use of wearable technologies such as fitness tracking devices show great promise as an individual, and cost effective solution. On the other hand, many people who try out these devices return them leading to lower than idea acceptance rates for these devices. We examined online product reviews for wearable fitness devices in order to discover which factors led to product acceptance or rejection. We performed a qualitative analysis of user reviews across many websites and devices followed by a quantitative exploratory analysis using stepwise multiple regression predicting users’ experience. Overall, our results support that four high-level themes: usability, trust, motivation, and wearability determined a user’s experience.

Special Issue for Wearable Electrochemical Sensors

Wearable sensors have garnered considerable recent interest in recent years owing to their tremendous promise for a wide range of healthcare, fitness or military applications. These wearable sensing platforms provide new avenues to monitor individuals continuously and can thus provide rich real-time information regarding a wearer's health and performance. While most early efforts on wearable fitness and biomedical devices have been devoted to the continuous monitoring of vital signs (such as heart rate, respiration rate, skin temperature) from physical signals, wearable chemical sensors have received limited attention. The recent introduction of new non-invasive chemical sensors aims at filling current gaps in wearable sensor technology, as desired for mobile health monitoring and remote diagnostics. Wearable electrochemical sensors have been integrated recently onto both textile materials and directly on the epidermis for various monitoring applications owing to their unique ability to process chemical analytes in a non-invasive and non-obtrusive fashion. These recent efforts have led to tremendous attention to body-worn electrochemical devices, including potentiometric electrolyte sensors and amperometric biosensors for metabolites. The successful realization of wearable sensing devices requires the migration of electrochemical systems from traditional rigid and planar substrates to flexible, wearable, and conformal sheets. The field of wearable electrochemical sensors offers exciting collaborative opportunities and its future growth and success will rely on the abilities of the researchers to continue to innovate and collaborate to address the existing challenges and opportunities. The present Special Issue of Electroanalysis sheds useful insights into the latest advances and current trends in the field of wearable electrochemical sensors and biosensors. Given the rapid development of such body-worn sensors, the studies reported in this Special Issue are just the beginning of a fantastic topic and journey. I would like to thank all the authors who contributed to this issue. Joseph Wang, Chief Editor

The influence of external factors on the accuracy of non-invasive measuring of oxygen in blood

In this paper we investigated a pulse oximetry-based method for mobile devices. This method obtains bio-signals related to blood pulsation in transparent parts of body. The most widely accepted field for use of this method is hospital care. In these cases a pulse oximeter is the best solution for the monitoring of emergency patients. A promising field for pulse oximetry is physical exercise. It only requires simple clips such as ear-clips, finger-clips, headbands etc. However this method presents some difficulties: weak signal, noise ratio, motion artefacts, low perfusion. We used a MAX30100 Oximeter and Heart Rate Sensor integrated circuit to obtain signals of blood pulse waves from red and infrared light emission diodes (LED). This device measures the oxygen saturation of a person’s blood by placing an LED and a photodetector against the thin skin of a person’s body, such as a fingertip, wrist or earlobe. The MAX30100 is a 14-pin surface mount integrated circuit that contains sensors for measuring a person’s heart rate. It can also indirectly determine the oxygen saturation of a person’s blood. The MAX30100 provides a complete pulse oximetry and heart rate measurement solution for medical monitors and wearable fitness devices. As each LED emits light into a person’s finger, the integrated photodetector measures variations in light caused by changes in blood volume. An integrated 16-bit analog to digital converter (ADC) with programmable sample rate converts the photodetector output to a digital value. The MAX30100 filters out ambient light that can interfere with an accurate reading. Data are read through a serial I2C interface to computer for further processing. The LED current can be programmed from 0 to 50 mA with proper supply voltage. The LED pulse width can be programmed from 200 µs to 1.6 ms to optimize measurement accuracy and power consumption based on use cases. The SpO2 algorithm is relatively insensitive to the wavelength of the infrared LED, but the red LED’s wavelength is critical to correct interpretation of the data. The temperature sensor data can be used to compensate errors with ambient temperature changes. During the experiments we registered oxygen concentration values under different conditions. With low muscular activity we observed high stability and repeatability of measuring values under various exterior conditions. However, with high muscular activity there were various artefacts in the gauged signals that led to contortion of effects. We identified the boundaries of the validity of measuring and propose the use of an adapted filter in order to distinguish pulse waves from optical signals more reliably. These devices can be applied in fitness training , medical monitoring and used as wearable devices.

What is Your Fitness Tracker Communicating?: Exploring Messages and Effects of Wearable Fitness Devices

Although studies have investigated how the technical features of wearable fitness trackers promote physical activity, we understand less about how communication surrounding such devices may contribute to their success. Addressing current opportunities for inquiry is important, as the popularity of fitness trackers and other wearable devices grows. Through interviews with 25 people wearing fitness devices, this study elucidates how and with whom people communicate fitness tracker messages and explains the effects of sociomaterial practice on interactions between wearable fitness device users. Our findings show the vital role of communication in sharing and encouraging physical activity.

The golden age of bio-logging: how animal-borne sensors are advancing the frontiers of ecology.

Great leaps forward in scientific understanding are often spurred by innovations in technology. The explosion of miniature sensors that are driving the boom in consumer electronics, such as smart phones, gaming platforms, and wearable fitness devices, are now becoming available to ecologists for remotely monitoring the activities of wild animals. While half a century ago researchers were attaching balloons to the backs of seals to measure their movement, today ecologists have access to an arsenal of sensors that can continuously measure most aspects of an animal's state (e.g., location, behavior, caloric expenditure, interactions with other animals) and external environment (e.g., temperature, salinity, depth). This technology is advancing our ability to study animal ecology by allowing researchers to (1) answer questions about the physiology, behavior, and ecology of wild animals in situ that would have previously been limited to tests on model organisms in highly controlled settings, (2) study cryptic or wide-ranging animals that have previously evaded investigation, and (3) develop and test entirely new theories. Here we explore how ecologists are using these tools to answer new questions about the physiological performance, energetics, foraging, migration, habitat selection, and sociality of wild animals, as well as collect data on the environments in which they live.

Information Integration Platform for Patient-Centric Healthcare Services: Design, Prototype and Dependability Aspects

Technology innovations have pushed today’s healthcare sector to an unprecedented new level. Various portable and wearable medical and fitness devices are being sold in the consumer market to provide the self-empowerment of a healthier lifestyle to society. Many vendors provide additional cloud-based services for devices they manufacture, enabling the users to visualize, store and share the gathered information through the Internet. However, most of these services are integrated with the devices in a closed “silo” manner, where the devices can only be used with the provided services. To tackle this issue, an information integration platform (IIP) has been developed to support communications between devices and Internet-based services in an event-driven fashion by adopting service-oriented architecture (SOA) principles and a publish/subscribe messaging pattern. It follows the “Internet of Things” (IoT) idea of connecting everyday objects to various networks and to enable the dissemination of the gathered information to the global information space through the Internet. A patient-centric healthcare service environment is chosen as the target scenario for the deployment of the platform, as this is a domain where IoT can have a direct positive impact on quality of life enhancement. This paper describes the developed platform, with emphasis on dependability aspects, including availability, scalability and security.