Wearable devices helped spot postsurgical complications in kids
About 1 in 7 children will have postoperative complications, but diagnoses can be delayed because they can be difficult for caretakers outside the hospital to spot.
To determine if data recorded by wearable devices can help predict recovery in children, researchers gave Fitbits to 103 children ages 3 to 18. All were recovering from an appendectomy, a common surgery in kids. The devices monitored heart rate and step-count data, sleep and other biometrics. They recorded 2,163 total monitoring days.
The researchers used the data to find circadian patterns in the children's biometrics during each day after their surgery. Of 94 children whose data could be used, 58 had a normal recovery, 23 had abnormal symptoms such as diarrhea but no ultimate complication, and 13 had a postoperative complication.
The researchers used a machine-learned model to predict complications using the Fibits and biorhythms. Daily patterns associated with activity, such as step count, ended up being the most important to predicting post-appendectomy recovery, followed by heart rhythms. Tracking biorhythms for as little as 120 minutes produced robust enough data for the model to analyze.
Overall, the researchers were able to predict postoperative complications using the wearable data with 91 percent sensitivity and 74 percent specificity.
'In our data, 89% of patients who had complications after discharge were readmitted and were all correctly predicted by the biorhythm model,' they write.
Other research suggests biorhythms may not be as effective at tracking adults' postoperative recovery. It might be easier to use biometrics to predict children's recoveries because their lives are more structured, making it easier to establish a typical baseline for analysis, the researchers add.
Other studies should focus on other childhood procedures including tonsillectomies, the researchers suggest. But overall, the researchers write, the study shows that consumer wearables and monitoring could help 'address key challenges in postoperative monitoring of children.'
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