In a new technological breakthrough, researchers at the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California, United States have in a new study declared that Apple, Fitbit and other smart watch wearable’s can detect the long term effects of COVID-19.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, several studies have been done to determine the possibility of wearable’s helping to detect the effects of the novel virus and this recent reports may be a shining light.
In recent years, Smart watches and fitness bands have become quite health focused as years goes by, with top technology brands like Apple and FitBit integrating important health features in their devices and products.
The new research hinted that the Apple Watch and a few other wearable’s may very well have health features that can help detect long-term effects of Covid-19.
According to the New York Times report, the California research team found out that about “nine days after patients with COVID-19 first began reporting symptoms, their heart rates dropped.” The COVID-19 positive patients steadily had their heart rates rising again and were continually elevated for months.
“It took 79 days, on average, for their resting heart rates to return to normal, compared with just four days for those in the non-COVID group,” the scientists confirmed in their research.
The report also noted that “Sleep and physical activity levels also returned to baseline more slowly in those with Covid-19 compared to those with other ailments,”
‘A small subset of people’s heart rates remained above normal for one to to months after they were infected by Covid-19,”
“Nearly 14 percent of those with the disease fell into this category, and their heart rates did not return to normal for more than 133 days, on average,” the report concludes.
Users were instructed to download the MyDataHelps research app, with them agreeing to share data from their Apple and Fitbit smart watches. They were then requested to reveal their COVID-19 related symptoms and the results of their earlier taken corona virus tests. It was discovered after the test that people who recovered from COVID-19 got to know that their heart rate has increased at a very large pace as It was five beats per minute which is higher than the normal rate. This condition remained in most patients two-three months after COVID recovery.
Dr Radin, one of the researchers in the study was emphatic on the positives taken from the research when he said:
“We want to kind of do a better job of collecting long-term symptoms, so we can compare the physiological changes that we’re seeing with symptoms that participants are actually experiencing. So this is really a preliminary study that opens up many other studies down the road.”
The study powered by the MyDataHelps research app would hopefully help in mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world.
Ayoola Faseyi, an Abuja based Journalist with interest in Technology and Politics. He is a versatile writer with articles in many renowned News Journals. He is the Co-Founder of media brand, The Vent Republic.
