Feasibility of remotely monitoring daily physical activity in individuals with acquired brain injury

Research Objectives: Wearable physical activity monitors (PAM) are increasingly replacing traditional patient recall questionnaires to monitor physical activity in the community. Remote objective monitoring of physical activity is needed especially in the current times of the Covid-19 pandemic. While PAM are increasingly used in multiple populations, there is no information on the feasibility and challenges of using PAM to remotely monitor physical activity in individuals with acquired brain injury. The main goal of this research is to determine the usability, ease of use and identify challenges of using PAM for remotely monitoring objective physical activity in the community in individuals with acquired brain injury.

Design: Mixed methods research (4-weeks)

Setting: In the community (real-world)

Participants: Ten individuals with acquired-brain-injury (Stroke and TBI)

Interventions: All participants wore three (wrist, ankle, waist) ActiGraph GT9X Link PAM simultaneously for 4-weeks in the community and provided their feedback weekly.

Main Outcome Measures: usability, ease of use, challenges

Results: Participants rated all PAM to have good usability on the System Usability Scale. They gave the best possible score on the After Scenario Questionnaire after using the remote data hub which was used daily to transfer the data remotely to the research dashboard. Qualitative content analysis showed that most challenges reported were for wrist PAM and wear attachments were the most challenging aspect of using PAM in this population.

Conclusions: This research helps establish the framework and challenges of using PAM to remotely monitor objective physical activity in the community in individuals with acquired brain injury. Continuous monitoring of physical activity in the community is essential to evaluate the progress and the effect of rehab interventions and for tracking daily physical activity in individuals with acquired brain injury.

Author(s) Disclosures: No conflicts