Digital measurement of mobility in pulmonary arterial hypertension: A structured review of an emerging area.

This review examined literature that has examined mobility in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) using digital technology. Specifically, the review focussed on: (a) digital mobility measurement in PAH; (b) commonly reported mobility outcomes in PAH; (c) PAH specific impact on mobility outcomes; and (d) recommendations concerning protocols for mobility measurement in PAH. PubMed, Scopus, and Medline databases were searched.

Relationship between skeletal mitochondrial function and digital markers of free-living physical activity in older adults.

This study examined the association between in vivo skeletal mitochondrial function and digital free-living physical activity patterns-a measure that summarizes biological, phenotypic, functional, and environmental effects on mobility. Among 459 participants (mean age 68 years; 55% women) in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, mitochondrial function was quantified as skeletal muscle oxidative capacity via post-exercise phosphocreatine recovery rate (τ) in the vastus lateralis muscle of the left thigh, using 31P magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Accelerometry was collected using a 7-day, 24-h wrist-worn protocol and summarized into activity amount, intensity, endurance, and accumulation patterning metrics.

Classification of Free-Living Body Posture with ECG Patch Accelerometers: Application to the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study.

Purpose: As health studies increasingly monitor free-living heart performance via ECG patches with accelerometers, researchers will seek to investigate cardio-electrical responses to physical activity and sedentary behavior, increasing demand for fast, scalable methods to process accelerometer data. We extend a posture classification algorithm for accelerometers in ECG patches when researchers do not have ground-truth labels or other reference measurements (i.e.

Digital wearable insole-based identification of knee arthropathies and gait signatures using machine learning.

Gait is impaired in musculoskeletal conditions, such as knee arthropathy. Gait analysis is used in clinical practice to inform diagnosis and monitor disease progression or intervention response. However, clinical gait analysis relies on subjective visual observation of walking as objective gait analysis has not been possible within clinical settings due to the expensive equipment, large-scale facilities, and highly trained staff required.

Validation of a Zio XT Patch Accelerometer for the Objective Assessment of Physical Activity in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study.

Background: Combination devices to monitor heart rate/rhythms and physical activity are becoming increasingly popular in research and clinical settings. The Zio XT Patch (iRhythm Technologies, San Francisco, CA, USA) is US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved for monitoring heart rhythms, but the validity of its accelerometer for assessing physical activity is unknown.

Objective: To validate the accelerometer in the Zio XT Patch for measuring physical activity against the widely-used ActiGraph GT3X.

Musculoskeletal Pain Characteristics and Objectively Measured Physical Activity in Older Adults.

Background: Pain is associated with reports of restricted physical activity (PA), yet the association between musculoskeletal pain characteristics and objectively measured PA quantities and patterns in late life is not well understood.

Methods: A total of 553 adults (mean age 75.8 ± 8.

The Association Between Ankle-Brachial Index and Daily Patterns of Physical Activity: Results From the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos.

Background: Peripheral artery disease (PAD) is associated with lower physical activity but less is known about its association with daily patterns of activity. We examined the cross-sectional association between ankle-brachial index (ABI) and objectively measured patterns of physical activity among Hispanic/Latino adults.

Methods: We analyzed data from 7 688 participants (aged 45-74 years) in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos.

The association of vitamin D supplementation and serum vitamin D levels with physical activity in older adults: Results from a randomized trial.

Background: To assess whether vitamin D supplementation attenuates the decline in daily physical activity in low-functioning adults at risk for falls.

Methods: Secondary data analyses of STURDY (Study to Understand Fall Reduction and Vitamin D in You), a response-adaptive randomized clinical trial. Participants included 571 adults aged 70 years and older with baseline serum 25(OH)D levels of 10-29 ng/mL and elevated fall risk, who wore a wrist accelerometer at baseline and at least one follow-up visit and were randomized to receive: 200 IU/day (control), 1000, 2000, or 4000 IU/day of vitamin D .

Stress-Induced Intensification of Deoxyshikonin Production in Hairy Root Cultures with Ester-Based Scaffolds.

In vitro plant cell and tissue culture systems allow for controlling a wide range of culture environmental factors selectively influencing biomass growth and the yield of secondary metabolites. Among the most efficient methods, complex supplementation of the culture medium with elicitors, precursors, and other functional substances may significantly enhance valuable metabolite productivity through a stress induction mechanism. In the search for novel techniques in plant experimental biotechnology, the goal of the study was to evaluate stress-inducing properties of novel biodegradable ester-based scaffolds made of poly(glycerol sebacate) (PGS) and poly(lactic acid) (PLA) influencing on the growth and deoxyshikonin productivity of hairy roots immobilized on the experimental constructs.

Distributional data analysis via quantile functions and its application to modeling digital biomarkers of gait in Alzheimer's Disease.

With the advent of continuous health monitoring with wearable devices, users now generate their unique streams of continuous data such as minute-level step counts or heartbeats. Summarizing these streams via scalar summaries often ignores the distributional nature of wearable data and almost unavoidably leads to the loss of critical information. We propose to capture the distributional nature of wearable data via user-specific quantile functions (QF) and use these QFs as predictors in scalar-on-quantile-function-regression (SOQFR).

Wrist-Worn Accelerometry, Aging, and Gait Speed in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging.

Wrist-worn accelerometry metrics are not well defined in older adults. Accelerometry data from 720 participants (mean age 70 years, 55% women) were summarized into (a) total activity counts per day, (b) active minutes per day, (c) active bouts per day, and (d) activity fragmentation (the reciprocal of the mean active bout length). Linear regression and mixed-effects models were utilized to estimate associations between age and gait speed with wrist accelerometry.

Improving patient selection for use of consumer grade physical activity monitors in the hospital.

Background: Bedrest is toxic for inpatients and consumer grade physical activity monitors offer an economical solution to monitor patient ambulation. But these devices may not be accurate in debilitated hospitalized patients who frequently ambulate very slowly.

Objective: To determine whether measures of physical capacity can help identify inpatients for whom wearable physical activity monitors may accurately measure step count.

Patterns of Daily Physical Movement, Chronic Inflammation, and Frailty Incidence.

Introduction: Low physical activity is a criterion of phenotypic frailty defined as an increased state of vulnerability to adverse health outcomes. Whether disengagement from daily all-purpose physical activity is prospectively associated with frailty and possibly modified by chronic inflammation-a pathway often underlying frailty-remains unexplored.

Methods: Using the Study to Understand Fall Reduction and Vitamin D in You data from 477 robust/prefrail adults (mean age = 76 ± 5 yr; 42% women), we examined whether accelerometer patterns (activity counts per day, active minutes per day, and activity fragmentation [broken accumulation]) were associated with incident frailty using Cox proportional hazard regression.

Smartphone-Based Gait Cadence to Identify Older Adults with Decreased Functional Capacity.

Background: Functional capacity assessment is a critical step in the preoperative evaluation to identify patients at increased risk of cardiac complications and disability after major noncardiac surgery. Smartphones offer the potential to objectively measure functional capacity but are limited by inaccuracy in patients with poor functional capacity. Open-source methods exist to analyze accelerometer data to estimate gait cadence (steps/min), which is directly associated with activity intensity.

Patterns of objectively measured physical activity differ between men living with and without HIV.

Objective: To use accelerometers to quantify differences in physical activity (PA) by HIV serostatus and HIV viral load (VL) in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS).

Methods: MACS participants living with (PLWH, n = 631) and without (PWOH, n = 578) HIV wore an ambulatory electrocardiogram monitor containing an accelerometer for 1-14 days. PA was summarized as cumulative mean absolute deviation (MAD) during the 10 most active consecutive hours (M10), cumulative MAD during the six least active consecutive hours (L6), and daily time recumbent (DTR).

Free-living wrist and hip accelerometry forecast cognitive decline among older adults without dementia over 1- or 5-years in two distinct observational cohorts.

The prevalence of major neurocognitive disorders is expected to rise over the next 3 decades as the number of adults ≥65 years old increases. Noninvasive screening capable of flagging individuals most at risk of subsequent cognitive decline could trigger closer monitoring and preventive strategies. In this study, we used free-living accelerometry data to forecast cognitive decline within 1- or 5-years in older adults without dementia using two cohorts.

Comparison of Accelerometry-Based Measures of Physical Activity: Retrospective Observational Data Analysis Study.

Background: Given the evolution of processing and analysis methods for accelerometry data over the past decade, it is important to understand how newer summary measures of physical activity compare with established measures.

Objective: We aimed to compare objective measures of physical activity to increase the generalizability and translation of findings of studies that use accelerometry-based data.

Methods: High-resolution accelerometry data from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging were retrospectively analyzed.

Scalar on time-by-distribution regression and its application for modelling associations between daily-living physical activity and cognitive functions in Alzheimer's Disease.

Wearable data is a rich source of information that can provide a deeper understanding of links between human behaviors and human health. Existing modelling approaches use wearable data summarized at subject level via scalar summaries in regression, temporal (time-of-day) curves in functional data analysis (FDA), and distributions in distributional data analysis (DDA). We propose to capture temporally local distributional information in wearable data using subject-specific time-by-distribution (TD) data objects.

Development of a Novel Accelerometry-Based Performance Fatigability Measure for Older Adults.

Introduction: Efforts to study performance fatigability have been limited because of measurement constrains. Accelerometry and advanced statistical methods may enable us to quantify performance fatigability more granularly via objective detection of performance decline. Thus, we developed the Pittsburgh Performance Fatigability Index (PPFI) using triaxial raw accelerations from wrist-worn accelerometer from two in-laboratory 400-m walks.

Daily Physical Activity Patterns as a Window on Cognitive Diagnosis in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA).

Background: Gradual disengagement from daily physical activity (PA) could signal present or emerging mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Objective: This study examined whether accelerometry-derived patterns of everyday movement differ by cognitive diagnosis in participants of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA).

Methods: Activity patterns, overall and by time-of-day, were cross-sectionally compared between participants with adjudicated normal cognition (n = 549) and MCI/AD diagnoses (n = 36; 5 participants [14%] living with AD) using covariate-adjusted regression models.

The effects of vitamin D supplementation on frailty in older adults at risk for falls.

Background: Low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] level is associated with a greater risk of frailty, but the effects of daily vitamin D supplementation on frailty are uncertain. This secondary analysis aimed to examine the effects of vitamin D supplementation on frailty using data from the Study To Understand Fall Reduction and Vitamin D in You (STURDY).

Methods: The STURDY trial, a two-stage Bayesian, response-adaptive, randomized controlled trial, enrolled 688 community-dwelling adults aged ≥ 70 years with a low serum 25(OH)D level (10-29 ng/mL) and elevated fall risk.

Daily steps and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis of 15 international cohorts.

Background: Although 10 000 steps per day is widely promoted to have health benefits, there is little evidence to support this recommendation. We aimed to determine the association between number of steps per day and stepping rate with all-cause mortality.

Methods: In this meta-analysis, we identified studies investigating the effect of daily step count on all-cause mortality in adults (aged ≥18 years), via a previously published systematic review and expert knowledge of the field.

Free-Living Gait Cadence Measured by Wearable Accelerometer: A Promising Alternative to Traditional Measures of Mobility for Assessing Fall Risk.

Background: Wearable devices have become widespread in research applications, yet evidence on whether they are superior to structured clinic-based assessments is sparse. In this manuscript, we compare traditional, laboratory-based metrics of mobility with a novel accelerometry-based measure of free-living gait cadence for predicting fall rates.

Methods: Using negative binomial regression, we compared traditional in-clinic measures of mobility (6-minute gait cadence, speed, and distance, and 4-m gait speed) with free-living gait cadence from wearable accelerometers in predicting fall rates.

Bacterial DNA detection in very preterm infants assessed for risk of early onset sepsis.

Objectives: The aim of this study is to evaluate the diagnostic ability of multiplex real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in very preterm infants assessed for risk of early onset neonatal sepsis (EOS).

Methods: Prospective observational cohort study. Blood samples of preterm neonates ≤32 weeks of gestation were evaluated by commercial multiplex real-time PCR within 2 h after delivery.