Abstract
Background Low levels of physical activity in older patients during hospitalization have been linked to loss of functional ability. Practical methods of measuring physical activity are needed to better understand this association and to measure the efficacy of interventions. The aims of this study were to evaluate the feasibility of using accelerometers to discriminate between lying, sitting, standing, and standing and moving and to determine the acceptability of the method from the patients' perspective. Methods A convenience sample of 24 inpatients was recruited. Participants wore accelerometers on their thigh and on their lower leg (just above the ankle) for 48 hours during their hospitalization. Postural changes and movement during the 48 hours were differentiated using derived pitch angles of the lower leg and thigh, and nongravity vector magnitude of the lower leg, respectively. Results On average, patients were lying for 61.2% of the recording time, sitting for 35.6%, standing but not moving 2.1%, and standing and moving 1.1%. All participants found the accelerometers acceptable to wear. Conclusions The methodology described in this study can be used to differentiate between lying, sitting, standing, and moving and is acceptable from a hospitalized older person's perspective.
Highlights
Low levels of physical activity in older patients during hospitalization have been linked to loss of functional ability
The study was conducted on inpatient wards of the Department of Medicine for the Elderly (DME) at Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust, England, United Kingdom
For continuous variables with a nonnormal distribution we reported median and interquartile range (IQR) or median and range if the number of data points was less than 25
Summary
Low levels of physical activity in older patients during hospitalization have been linked to loss of functional ability. The methodology described in this study can be used to differentiate between lying, sitting, standing, and moving and is acceptable from a hospitalized older person’s perspective. In community cohorts and epidemiological studies, accelerometer data are usually reported in terms of time spent at different intensities of physical activity [10] In hospital cohorts, this information is somewhat redundant due to the severity of inactivity and low intensity of all activity. It would be desirable to measure hospital activity in terms of time spent in specific postures (e.g., lying, sitting, and standing) and time spent walking [12,13,14] This is because a more nuanced characterization of mobility patterns in older hospitalized patients may facilitate the design of specific physical interventions to try to combat hospital-associated functional decline.
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