The tech watching our wellbeing

By Chris Long Reporter, BBC Click

The high street is awash with consumer medical devices.

Is knowing you heart rate always helpful information?

One product just about to hit shelves is a portable electrocardiograph (ECG).

It listens to your heartbeat and analyses it for irregularities and then tells you if you have any. It also shows you a graph of your heartbeat.

There is also an automatic blood pressure monitor which stores your data so you can download it on to a computer and print the results out.

But what do you do with the information, and who can really use it?

Dr Nick Oliver, clinician and medical specialist at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering Imperial College says: "Things are marketed towards consumers with a suggestion that they have a certain benefit. That isn't necessarily always true.

"We test people's cholesterol, but unless they're at risk of heart disease is there really a benefit to treating them? We test people's blood-glucose, but we know that in type-II diabetes there's no great benefit to testing it if you're on tablets alone."

He also says there is a danger that home testing, without understanding what the results mean, can harm the patient by increasing their anxiety about a condition that may not even be a problem.

Organ control

However, Dr Oliver believes that technology does have an important role in healthcare.

"Medical technology gets smaller, lower powered, better and wireless as time goes by. We need to learn how to use those things," he says.

Researchers are currently working on the next generation of device which will remotely link patients with healthcare providers.

Sensium devices can be used to measure a range of body functions

For example, Toumaz technology, a spin-out form Imperial College London has developed the Sensium.

The chip - which can be built into a digital plaster - gives ECG data, respiration rates and body temperature. It also has an accelerometer, which tells you about which way you are moving.

It is connected to the body using a standard ECG electrode. The unit is very small, the electrode plugs into it and it is connected with a strap below the ribcage.

The chip is able to perform real time data processing allowing it to give immediate feedback to the wearer.

However, the data can also be sent from the device via a secondary device such as a mobile phone.

Remote computers or doctors can monitor a patient from afar, detecting changes outside the normal ranges.

The company believe the device may also be useful for people who want to keep a remote eye on an elderly relative.

In the longer term, Imperial College scientists are developing even more advanced devices.

Dr Oliver and his team are currently working on a silicon pancreatic beta cell - an artificial pancreas - that will be able to automatically deliver insulin for type one diabetics when they need it.

With a bit of luck it will take five years or so to complete.