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Mark Ciolek and Sarah Cruser are physical therapists involved in health promotion and the investigators in the PT Health Study (https://www.pthealthstudy.org/). PT Health Study takes wearable devices (i.e. FitBit) and connect those with health care providers like physical therapists.
Data collected includes step count, quality of sleep, heart rate variability, resting heart rate, stress, and recovery PT Health Study incorporates this data by educating their participants on prevention of future chronic diseases.
For the future, Sarah hopes for improvement in wearable technology to provide a simple way for older adults to use wearables for health prevention. PT Health Study goal is to provide the whole community with information to decrease risk and improve health by using wearables.
QUOTES
This is scalable to be used by PTs across the country and really impact the health of a whole population.” – SARAH
“The future is now.” – MARK
“It looks like rain, maybe you should throw an umbrella in your bag.” – SARAH
“We are providing nudges and guidance that are pre-scope of practice.” – SARAH
“Sometimes they do get wet and that’s ok because we can also still hand them a towel.” – SARAH
“We need to find a way to better connect with our communities in a real way that starts to engage around the idea of health.” – MARK
PARTING SHOT
“This is an opportunity to drastically change the way we approach not only health and wellness but care in general.” – SARAH
“What are you doing to take a little bit more of the pie?” – MARK