Wearables can track COVID symptoms, other diseases

If you become ill with COVID-19, your smartwatch can track the progression of your symptoms, and could even show how sick you become. That's according to a University of Michigan study that examined the effects of COVID-19 with six factors derived from heart rate data. The same method could be used to detect other diseases such as influenza, and the researchers say the approach could be used to track disease at home or when medical resources are scarce, such as during a pandemic or in developing countries. Their results are published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine. Following U-M students and medical interns throughout the country, the researchers discovered new signals embedded in heart rate indicating when individuals were infected with COVID and how sick they became. The researchers found that individuals with COVID experienced an increase in heart rate per step after symptom onset, and those with a cough had a much higher heart rate per step than those without a cough. "We found that COVID dampened biological timekeeping signals, changed how your heart rate responds to activity, altered basal heart rate and caused stress signals,” said Daniel Forger , professor of mathematics and research professor of computational medicine and bioinformatics.