Key result
Wearable sports cardiac monitors lack standardized validation across 35 studies, yielding scarcely comparable results.
Why the study?
Commercial wearable and portable cardiac devices are increasingly used to monitor athletes and assess risk for sport-related cardiac diseases, requiring a scoping review of their applications.
Systematic Review (n=35)
While wearable cardiac devices in sports show potential for performance monitoring and preventing adverse events, there is a critical need for standardized validation protocols.
Heterogeneous validation limits clinical reliance on sports wearables; challenges the evidence base and extends need for standardized protocols.
Wearable and portable devices capable of acquiring cardiac signals are at the frontier of the sport industry. They are becoming increasingly popular for monitoring physiological parameters while practicing sport, given the advances in miniaturized technologies, powerful data, and signal processing applications. Data and signals acquired by these devices are increasingly used to monitor athletes' performances and thus to define risk indices for sport-related cardiac diseases, such as sudden cardiac death. This scoping review investigated commercial wearable and portable devices employed for cardiac signal monitoring during sport activity. A systematic search of the literature was conducted on PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. After study selection, a total of 35 studies were included in the review. The studies were categorized based on the application of wearable or portable devices in (1) validation studies, (2) clinical studies, and (3) development studies. The analysis revealed that standardized protocols for validating these technologies are necessary. Indeed, results obtained from the validation studies turned out to be heterogeneous and scarcely comparable, since the metrological characteristics reported were different. Moreover, the validation of several devices was carried out during different sport activities. Finally, results from clinical studies highlighted that wearable devices are crucial to improve athletes' performance and to prevent adverse cardiovascular events.
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Romagnoli et al. (2023) conducted a systematic review in Sport-related cardiac monitoring (n=35). Wearable and portable devices for cardiac signal monitoring was evaluated on Validation, clinical, and development applications of wearable/portable devices. Wearable and portable cardiac monitoring devices during sports lack standardized validation protocols, yielding heterogeneous and scarcely comparable results across 35 reviewed studies.
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