Wearable Technology to Improve the Clinical Care of Patients with Chronic Conditions
The objective of this talk is to discuss how wearable technology could improve the quality of care of patients with chronic conditions. We will examine how wearable technology could enhance the ability of pulmonologists to achieve early detection of exacerbation episodes in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, we will show how using wearable sensors to monitor motor symptoms in patients with Parkinson’s disease could improve the ability of neurologists to titrate their medications, and we will demonstrate how combining wearable sensors with robotic technology could allow rehabilitation specialists to improve the ability of amputees to perform activities of daily living. As a case in point, we will then discuss in a detailed manner how wearable technology could transform stroke rehabilitation by providing longitudinal data during the recovery process and by facilitating the deployment of home-based rehabilitation interventions. Wearable technology has already begun to transform the field of medicine and innovation in electronics, wireless communication, and machine learning is expected to continue to enable substantial improvements in the clinical care of patients with chronic conditions over the next decade.
Paolo Bonato, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School. He holds adjunct appointments at the MGH Institute of Health Professions, the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and Boston University College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences. He has held Adjunct Faculty positions at MIT, the University of Ireland Galway, and the University of Melbourne. His research work is focused on the development of rehabilitation technologies with special emphasis on wearable technology and robotics. Dr. Bonato currently serves as the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Open Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology. He served as IEEE EMBS Vice President for Publications (2013-2016). He received the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy in 1989 and the Ph.D. degree in biomedical engineering from Universita` di Roma “La Sapienza” in 1995.