Wearable gadgets for long-term health tracking: Do they really work for post-virus conditions?

Around 65 million people worldwide have dealt with long COVID, while another 17 to 24 million struggle with other lingering effects after infections. Doctors often suggest these patients keep an eye on their symptoms and adjust their activity levels carefully. Wearable devices like fitness trackers could help with this, but do they actually do the job well?A big review of existing studies looked into whether these gadgets can reliably measure things like heart rate and activity levels for people recovering from infections. Researchers checked over 3, 900 records and narrowed it down to 42 useful reviews covering more than 30 brands and 150 different devices. The results? The quality of these studies varied a lot. Some devices worked well for certain things, like tracking heart rate or detecting irregular heartbeats, but most didn’t show strong proof that they help doctors or patients make better decisions. The review also found that many studies didn’t follow good scientific practices, and the devices often gave different results depending on who was using them and where. Only two specific uses—measuring heart rate and spotting atrial fibrillation—had decent evidence behind them. For the rest, the data was too shaky to trust fully.