The primary purpose for wrist watches over the years has been to read the time, but recently that has begun to change. The release of fitness trackers, smartwatches and all sorts of other wearable gadgets in recent years has expanded the potential of what watches can do. Even the most basic smart watches can link up to smartphones to display notifications. The more advanced ones can make contactless payments, track your heart rate, let you make phone calls and all sorts of other amazing things.
But it’s not just communication and payments that this new technology can be used for. There are a lot of other incredible things that people may be able to do with this technology and today we’re going to have a look at some of them. Read on to learn about the watches that treat medical conditions.
Watches Which Help Epilepsy Sufferers
Epilepsy is such a difficult condition to manage, especially when you’re on your own. Seizures can happen at any time and, if you don’t get medical help quickly, there is a risk of long term harm. A great solution to this problem is the production of watches that treat medical conditions like epilepsy. These watches are designed to detect movements which indicate that the wearer is having a seizure and then call for help.
The Embrace Smart Watch by Empatica is one of these watches – this device alerts caregivers of the seizure as soon as it detects that the wearer is having one. The SmartMonitor Smart Watch uses a GPS tracing system to alert caregivers of the location of the wearer when they have a seizure. These are only some of the watches used to help treat epilepsy and can literally be a lifesaver when a sufferer has a seizure.
A Watch Which Monitors Blood Pressure
The problem for people who have high blood pressure is not that it is difficult to treat because it can be treated incredibly effectively using different drugs . The issue with high blood pressure is that many people who have it do not realise that they have it. According to the American Heart Association, a quarter of the people who have high blood pressure do not realise they have it. This is one reason why it is incredibly important to have an effective way for people to learn that they have high blood pressure.
In 2011, Hewlett-Packard teamed up with HealthSTATS (a company from Singapore) to produce a device which can be used to monitor blood pressure. When it comes to watches that treat medical conditions, this is one of the most “smart watch” looking watches. At a glance it looks just like a standard smart watch. But inside the watch you’ll find BPro EVBP Technology developed by HealthSTATS which monitors something called the pulse wave from the radial artery. This allows the device to measure blood pressure in a way which produces results as accurate as more invasive surgical methods.
A Watch Which Helps Treat Parkinson’s Tremors
Parkinson’s disease affects 10 million people around the world and is completely incurable. One of the most common symptoms is uncontrollable shaking – and that symptom is what this watch, created by Microsoft, hopes to help treat.
The “Emma Watch” is named after the person that watch was created for – Emma Lawton, a friend of Microsoft Research innovation director Haiyan Zhang. The watch helped Emma put pen to paper and write legibly for the first time in years. It treated Emma’s tremors using little vibration motors which sends signals to the brain to distract it from creating the tremors.
The device is just a prototype at the minute, but it could be one of the most important watches that treat medical conditions. It certainly seems to have had a positive effect on Emma so far as she told Microsoft, “The device doesn’t stop my tremor. The writing, it’s not going to be perfect. But, my God, it’s better.”
Photos: Microsoft
