February 19, 2021
February is American Heart Month, and while heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, it is also largely preventable, and there are many things we can do to keep our hearts healthy. One avenue is utilizing broadband technologies and innovations such as wearable devices to monitor and promote heart health.
Last year, a team from Purdue University developed a self-powered wearable monitor that attaches to an individual’s wrist like a band-aid and harvests mechanical energy from the human body to capture and monitor the cardiovascular information encoded in pulse signals. Traditionally, cardiovascular health has been measured by bulkier methods like an echocardiogram, but lightweight wearables can provide personalized and on-demand monitoring that could someday appear on your smartphone.