Remote patient care is a growing healthcare area that uses innovative monitoring technologies like wearable devices with sensors and biosensors. These technologies allow healthcare providers to track patient health data continuously outside traditional healthcare settings. Two recent studies highlight the exciting advances and potential applications of remote patient monitoring for enabling more personalized, proactive care.
This article will examine a study leveraging medical-grade wearable devices for cardiovascular monitoring. In addition, a second study explores remote care approaches for preserving post-stroke brain health. These research examples showcase how remote patient care creates new opportunities for early diagnosis, prevention, and tailored treatment recommendations unique to each patient’s changing needs. With continuous biometrics and health insights now accessible outside hospital and clinic walls, remote care is poised to fundamentally improve chronic disease management and well-being between doctor’s visits.
Remote Patient Care Wearables Study
A multi-center study published in Digital Health aimed to describe 24-hour trajectories of advanced cardiovascular parameters like heart rate, blood pressure, stroke volume, and cardiac index with medical-grade wearable remote patient monitoring devices. Remote patient care data was continuously collected from 256 ambulatory participants for 24 hours as they went about their normal daily activities.
Cardiovascular Monitoring With Medical Wearables
Results showed significant diurnal parameter variations corresponding with awake/sleep cycles. Heart rate and cardiac index dropped the most at night (12 bpm and 0.6 L/min/m2). Systemic vascular resistance increased at night, peaking around 5 am. Analyses were done stratifying groups by sex, age, and BMI. Females had higher heart rate and cardiac index with lower vascular resistance than males. Obese participants had higher blood pressure but lower stroke volume and cardiac index. At the same time, older people had higher systolic blood pressure but lower cardiac index.
Wearable remote patient care monitoring platforms were able to detect subgroup-specific hemodynamic changes. Hemodynamic changes refer to changes in the body’s blood flow and circulatory system dynamics. This could help efforts to provide personalized medicine, early diagnosis/prevention, and inform drug development.
Overall, the study shows promise for remote patient monitoring wearables to provide ambulatory monitoring and personalized insights.
Remote Patient Care and Post-Stroke Monitoring
The article published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine focuses on remote patient care and remote monitoring after stroke. This review summarizes current evidence on modifiable factors to optimize post-stroke brain health, particularly vascular, lifestyle, and psychosocial factors. Clinical recommendations are provided across four interrelated post-stroke brain health domains – cognition, psychosocial health, physical function, and vascular health.
Research Recommendations in Remote Patient Care
The research recommends precision management to optimize brain health, such as identifying stroke mechanisms and cause-specific prevention. Comprehensive vascular health management includes blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, and lifestyle modification through diet, exercise, sleep, and social/psychological support. The researchers suggest the following remote patient care management approaches at major care transition points post-stroke.
- Take a precision approach to secondary stroke prevention based on identified stroke mechanisms and etiology. This includes personalized rehabilitation tailored to each patient.
- Optimize vascular health by comprehensively managing risk factors like blood pressure, diabetes, and cholesterol with lifestyle changes and medications.
- Address lifestyle factors like physical activity, diet, and sleep disorders. Set specific targets like sodium intake <1500mg/day.
- Screen and treat psychosocial issues like depression, apathy, and fatigue, which impact recovery. Provide social support and resources for caregiver burden.
In terms of future directions, the article discusses the potential benefits of telerehabilitation for remote monitoring and care delivery. Overall, the review covers the current state of monitoring and managing post-stroke brain health and provides clinical recommendations and future research directions in this emerging field. It aims to spur more clinical and research focus on preserving cognitive, physical, and psychosocial function after a stroke.
Key Points in Personalized Remote Patient Care
Together, these studies demonstrate a wealth of longitudinal health insights are gained from remote patient care technologies. additional research shows that smartwatches that are used as activity trackers have shown improvements in health metrics across a wide range of populations. As wearables and sensors continue advancing, they promise to enable more anticipatory, precision care-tuning treatment to each patient’s changing needs in chronic conditions like post-stroke care and preventing adverse events in at-risk groups.
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