Frontiers in Psychology (Aug 2014)
Wearable Psychobiologic Sensors and Resilience as a Systems Strategy to Develop Personalized Health through the Extensive Care System: A Perfect Storm?
Abstract
We begin by placing our discussion in the context of the chronic crisis in medical care, noting key features, including economic, safety and conceptual challenges. Then we review the most promising elements of a broadened conceptual approach to health and wellbeing, which include an expanded role for psychological, social, cultural, spiritual and environmental variables. The contributions of positive and evolutionary psychology, complex adaptive systems theory, genomics and neuroscience are described and the rapidly developing synthetic field of resilience as a catalytic unifying development is traced in some detail, including analysis of the rapidly growing empirical literature on resilience and its constituents, particularly heart rate variability. Finally, a review of the use of miniaturized ambulatory data collection, analysis and self-management and health management systems points out an exemplar, the Extensive Care System, which takes advantage of the continuing advances in biosensor technology, computing power, networking dynamics and social media to facilitate not only personalized health and wellbeing, but higher quality evidence-based preventive, treatment and epidemiological outcomes. This development will challenge the acute care episode model typified by the ER or ICU stay and replace it with an extensive care system capable of facilitating not only healthyautonomic functioning, but both ipsative/individual and normative/population health.
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