Diabetes is a prevalent illness. The World Health Organization reports
that the number of people affected by diabetes “has risen from 108
million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014.” Medical technology companies
are privy to the market opportunity behind this disease, and are racing
to create affordable, easy-to-use wearables for diabetics to better
manage their care. Namely, there have been numerous efforts to perfect a
variety of devices in this ecosystem, including in tracking blood sugar
patterns, general lifestyle management, and even in customized
medication management. The race and standards are the same as with any
endeavor that involves healthcare hardware: build a product which is as
non-invasive as possible, accurate, affordable, scalable to the public
masses, and most importantly, is valuable to both physicians and
patients alike. Market economics of medical devices aside, if these
devices indeed deliver results as promised, the sheer value of the data
they can provide to physicians and patients is incredible.
Traditional blood glucose monitoring kit.
Getty
One of the most important applications is continuous and long-term
blood sugar monitoring. To accurately gauge a patient’s diabetes status,
physicians often use the Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c),
a test that provides a summary of a patient’s blood sugars over a 3
month time period. This information is valuable as it distinguishes
momentary anomalies in blood sugar spikes from true, long term patterns.
While this test has been the gold standard for diagnosing diabetes,
wearable technology that offers continuous blood sugar monitoring
and can drill down to weekly, daily, or even hourly blood sugar
patterns would be a significant addition to the standard blood HbA1c
test. This is because variables such as a patient’s blood sugar highs
and lows during a given day, how a patient’s sugar levels change after a
taking a certain dose of medication, or even how blood sugar levels
change during sleep, are all extremely important factors that physicians
must deal with on a daily basis. The ideal medical management of
diabetes is based on finding the perfect balance of medication to keep
the patient’s blood sugar in the perfect range: if the blood sugar is too high, there are significant risks of vascular complications, such as vision problems and kidney disease; if the blood sugar is too low,
it can lead to morbid outcomes, including fainting, seizures, or even
death. Therefore, these devices can significantly improve a physician’s
efforts in providing the perfect combination of medication to keep
patients at a stable blood sugar rate and prevent long term
complications.
Traditional continuous insulin pump.
Getty
Further recognizing the importance of this constant balance in
maximizing patient quality of life, device makers have recently started venturing into another area:
creating “Closed Loop Systems” that can essentially monitor a patient’s
blood sugar levels real-time and modify medication delivery
accordingly. Traditional diabetic management for those with severe
disease has entailed the use of insulin pumps,
which deliver a steady rate of medication to control blood sugar
levels. With these traditional pumps, a patient can manually change the
level of medication injected: if he/she expects to have an especially
sugar/ carbohydrate rich meal, an increased level of medication can be
delivered to maintain steady blood sugar levels. The development of
recent closed loop technology is a promising step in automating this
process. These systems can use sensors to continuously monitor sugar
values based on real-time variables, including food intake, exercise,
and activity level, and automatically change the amount of medication
delivered according to the given situation. The value behind this
real-time monitoring is immense, as it can curate the delivery of
insulin according to a patient’s unique situation. Once perfected, these
systems can potentially ease the difficulties that diabetics face on a
daily basis in trying to monitor their own blood sugar and manually
titrating their insulin regimen accordingly.
Device makers are also attempting to improve the lifestyle and behavioral aspects of diabetes management. Famous medical device maker Medtronic recently purchased Klue,
a startup which focuses on behavior tracking software. Specifically,
“Klue has developed fine motor artificial intelligence software that can
detect meals and provide insights into user eating behaviors. Because
food consumption is intrinsically related to insulin requirements for
people living with diabetes, the ability to automate meal identification
along with the corresponding insulin delivery is an unmet need that
could greatly simplify living with this disease.” This will potentially
provide significant respite to diabetics in monitoring their lifestyle
and dietary habits.
Ultimately, there is immense hope for technology to revolutionize
diabetic care worldwide. As companies are continuing to invest heavily
into research and development in this area, one thing is certain:
organizations that can deliver convenient, less invasive, and agile
methods for diabetics to better manage their disease will greatly
alleviate the pains that are concomitant with this illness. https://www.forbes.com/sites/saibala/2020/02/14/the-promising-outlook-of-wearable-technology-for-diabetes-management/#7526bb001bec
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