medwireNews: Findings from a pilot study indicate that activity tracking using a wrist-worn device is a feasible approach for promoting physical activity in adolescent patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA).
Liane Heale (The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada) and co-investigators explain that JIA patients “are less physically active than their healthy peers and are at high risk of missing out on the general health benefits of physical activity,” and “[w]earable activity trackers are a promising option for intervening in this population.”
As reported in Pediatric Rheumatology, all 28 participants who were instructed to wear an activity tracker for 28 days were able to synchronize the tracker to a compatible smartphone, while 58% wore the tracker for at least 80% of the study period.
The majority (71%) of patients reported feeling more physically active as a result of wearing the tracker, but there was no significant improvement in levels of physical activity and no significant change in patient-reported health status from baseline to week 5, say the researchers. They note, however, that their pilot study may have been “too small to have detected a difference [in these parameters] should one exist.”
Heale and colleagues conclude that “[w]rist worn activity tracking is a feasible intervention for adolescent patients with JIA,” and “[m]ore research is needed to examine the effect of activity tracking on physical activity levels.”
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