Past, Present and Future of Research on Wearable Technologies for Healthcare: A Bibliometric Analysis Using Scopus

Abstract

Currently, wearable technology is present in different fields that aim to satisfy our needs 13 in daily life, including the improvement of our health in general, the monitoring of patient health, 14 ensuring the safety of people in the workplace or supporting athlete training. The objective of this 15 bibliometric analysis is to examine and map the scientific advances in wearable technologies in 16 healthcare, as well as to identify future challenges within this field and put forward some proposals 17 to address them. In order to achieve this objective, a search of the most recent related literature was 18 carried out in the Scopus database. Our results show that the research can be divided into two peri- 19 ods: before 2013, it focused on design and development of sensors and wearable systems from an 20 engineering perspective and, since 2013, it has focused on the application of this technology to mon- 21 itoring health and well-being in general, and in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals 22 wherever feasible. Our results reveal that the United States has been the country with the highest 23 publication rates, with 208 articles (34.7%). The University of California, Los Angeles, is the institu- 24 tion with the most studies on this topic, 19 (3.1%). Sensors journal (Switzerland) is the platform with 25 the most studies on the subject, 51 (8.5%), and has one of the highest citation rates, 1461. We put 26 forward an analysis of keywords and, more specifically, a pennant chart and a timeline plot to illus- 27 trate the trends in this field of research, prioritizing the area of data collection through wearable 28 sensors, smart clothing and other forms of discrete collection of physiological data.