With Digital Health, the Future Is Now

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With Digital Health, the Future Is Now
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With Digital Health, the Future Is Now Amid the
often dire news circulating this year, several
outlets added a bit of levity with articles
noting that 2022 was the supposed year of George
Jetsons birth. The Jetsons, the space-dwelling
animated cartoon family whose home once
represented the ultimate in futuristic living,
entertained audiences of the 1960s and beyond
with wild imaginings of gizmos and gadgets that
might be invented in the 21st century. And now,
the articles marveled, our timeline officially
overlaps with that of the Jetson familys
patriarch. Several technologies featured in the
series came to pass in the 21st century,
including drones, teleconferencing, and
Siri-esque robots. One episode even featured a
pill cam that could be swallowed to allow a
doctor to see inside the human body. This
technology existsthough in a different
formtoday. Although were not yet living in
spacious apartments or enjoying a two-hour
workweek like George Jetson, digital health
advances are beginning. They even exceed the
level of technological advancement that once
seemed comically distant.
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What is digital health? In our increasingly
computerized world, the descriptor digital seems
to be applied to nearly everything. Digital
health has become a popular buzzword, but what
does it mean for human health to become
increasingly integrated with technology? Digital
health includes any device, treatment, or system
that uses technology to track, diagnose, or
monitor human health data. The term refers to
developments such as digital medical record
systems, telehealth medical appointments, and
smart devices that can track health data.
Advancements in digital health have raised our
awareness of our health and fitness and made it
easier for us to manage both. Assuming we have
access to a reliable internet connection, we can
schedule medical appointments, receive test
results online, and often even meet with our
doctors on video from our chosen location.
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Smartwatches and cell phone apps can track
everything from the number of steps we take daily
to the quality of our sleep cycles. A person with
diabetes can use a smartwatch with a glucose
monitor to check their blood sugar rather than
having to prick their finger to produce a blood
sample several times a day. And after undergoing
heart surgery, a patient can wear a digital
monitor that wirelessly relays their heart rate
data to a secure lab server from the comfort of
their home. Digital health solutions can
accelerate healing and make chronic health
conditions easier to live with. These Internet
of Things (IOT) devices can also motivate us to
practice better preventive habits by helping us
keep daily tabs on our diet and exercise. In
addition to helping us take a more active role in
our health, digital health researchers are also
developing exciting applications of artificial
intelligence that make crucial health information
available to physicians for the first time.
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Digital biomarkers Charting the
unknown Artificial intelligence offers two
powerful advantages for medical testing and
diagnosis. First, AI applications are often less
invasive than traditional forms of medical
testing. Second, they can produce objective
results because they require no human
intermediary to gather and record data. They are
also not dependent on patients reporting of
their symptoms, which is often inconsistent.
Imaging machines with embedded AI capabilities
can help radiologists analyze scans to diagnose
problems that might otherwise have gone
undetected and allow them to prioritize the most
critical patient cases. And by recording and
analyzing digital biomarkers such as heart rate
and brain activity in real-time, AI programs can
alert medical staff to the presence of disease at
its earliest stages before humans can detect it.
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The ViewMind test A cognitive tuning
fork ViewMind is proud to be at the forefront of
this wave of AI innovation. Studying the digital
biomarker of eye pattern movements in response to
visual stimuli delivered through a virtual
reality headset, weve found a way to detect the
presence of neurocognitive disorders earlier than
ever before. Since forms of dementia such as
Alzheimers are often not detected until its too
late to improve patient outcomes, this finding
holds great promise for a brighter future for
individuals with dementia. Through longitudinal
research, weve found that not only can our
20-minute test discover the presence of cognitive
decline, but it can also predict with
near-perfect accuracy that patients showing such
signs will develop Alzheimers disease. Our test
acts as a tuning fork checking for the perfect
pitch. By activating a certain brain area through
virtual reality exercises, we can see if
something is out of tune by tracking a patients
eye movements. And we have learned that certain
eye movement patterns correlate to the presence
of beta-amyloid and Tau proteins in brain cells,
a tell-tale indicator of Alzheimers. Our goal is
to one day make such diagnostic methods part of
routine cognitive health exams worldwide. Digital
health allows us to implement noninvasive,
accessible diagnostic tools to support proactive
cognitive health care. Who knows what well have
achieved by the 2060s when George Jetsons doctor
told him hed live to be 150?Article Resource -
https//www.viewmind.com/with-digital-health-the-f
uture-is-now/