Remote monitoring of physical activity in individuals with Acquired Brain Injury.

Research Objectives: To determine the physical activity patterns in community dwelling older adults with Acquired Brain Injury (ABI).

Design: Cross-sectional.

Setting: General outdoor community.

Participants: Ten individuals aged between 45 – 75 years in the chronic phase post-injury.

Interventions: All participants wore 3 activity monitors simultaneously, one each on their wrist, ankle and waist for 4 weeks continuously.

Main Outcome Measures: Step count, Active time spent in different intensities, Sedentary time.

Results: PA outcomes varied significantly based on wear location. The observed trend in stroke patients for step counts was ankle>waist>wrist (13%-30% difference); for TBI patients the trend was waist>ankle>wrist (65%-93% difference). For wrist wear location, step count across all Stroke patients ranged 14,000-52,000 steps/week; TBI patients ranged 11,000-25,000 steps/week. Individuals with Stroke and TBI spent about 1371.23 ± 735 and 1183.55 ± 162 minutes/week respectively being sedentary, 1264.64±351 and 1052 ± 249 minutes/week in light intensity and lifestyle activities while 400 ± 63 and 382 ± 89 minutes/week were spent in moderate and vigorous intensity activities.

Conclusions: This is the first study to objectively measure everyday Physical activity (PA) over a month at 3 different wear-locations in individuals with ABI. This study results show community-based PA patterns in these individuals which needs to be taken into consideration when developing PA interventions in individuals with Stroke and Traumatic Brain Injury.PA programs and interventions should try to reduce long sedentary bouts greater than 20 minutes while increasing time spent in light intensity and lifestyle activities along focusing on moderate intensity exercise.

Author(s) Disclosures: No conflicts to disclose.