Bodies in motion: Monitoring daily activity and exercise with motion sensors in people with chronic pulmonary disease

Bonnie G. Steele, PhD, ARNP; Basia Belza, PhD, RN; Kevin Cain, PhD;
Catherine Warms, PhD, ARNP, CRRN; Jeff Coppersmith, MS, CSCS; JoEllen Howard, BS, GCS

Primary Care and Specialty Medicine Service, Health Services Research and Development Department, Department
of Veterans Affairs (VA) Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle Division; Department of Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Systems, University of Washington, Seattle, WA; Department of Biostatistics and Office of Nursing Research, School of Nursing, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Abstract — A primary goal of pulmonary rehabilitation is to improve health and life quality by encouraging participants to engage in exercise and to increase daily physical activity. The recent advent of motion sensors, including digital pedometers and accelerometers that measure motion as a continuous variable, have added precision to the measurement of free-living daily activity. Daily activity and exercise are variables of keen interest to proponents of the national health agenda, epidemiologists, clinical researchers, and rehabilitation interventionists. This paper summarizes issues related to conceptualizing and monitoring activity in the rehabilitation setting; reviews motion sensor methodology; compares motion-sensing devices; presents analysis issues and current and potential applications to the pulmonary rehabilitation setting; and gives practical applications and limitations.

Key words: accelerometer, daily activity, exercise, pedometer, pulmonary disease, pulmonary rehabilitation.