PSTD Wearable Devices - How Wearable can Track PTSD Symptoms 

According to a study published in Jama Psychiatry, around 2000 participants wore Verily Life Sciences' Study Watch for eight weeks after they had suffered from a traumatic event like car crash, physical & sexual assault, serious accident or a mass casualty incident. This was done to see how a wearable device could pick up biomarkers of post-traumatic stress disorder like sleep disruption, anxiety, depression and pain.

The participants wore their wearable device for 21 hours a day. The researchers found eight significant biomarkers of PTSD. One of them was there was reduced activity variance in a 24-hour period which correlated with how severe the pain of the participant was. Another important biomarker was the number of times a participant woke up during sleep which indicated increased levels of pain, anxiety and depression.

This study is significant because clinicians can now use data from wearable devices to see how their patients are recovering after a traumatic event. There is potential for narrowing certain biomarkers that can help tell if the symptoms of patients are improving or worsening. This can help clinicians develop better treatment plans for their patients to help them recover more quickly.

But, there were some obvious limitations in the study. All of the participants had gone to the emergency department. They were also mostly car crash survivors, so the data might not hold true for patients that have gone through a different kind of traumatic experience. The study also concedes that just data from wearable devices is not enough as it can't objectively measure the level of pain, stress, anxiety and depression related to PTSD. It can only augment self-reported information from the patients themselves.

However, the information from wearable devices can help physicians predict with a greater degree of certainty who can recover from traumatic events or where patients are in their recovery journey.