Smartphones for continuous assessment of physical activity in healthcare

Abstract

The benefits of exercise and physical activity are well-known and documented. However, most recommendations do not consider the stress caused on the joint and bone structure in the context of musculoskeletal conditions. A committee of selected experts recognise the importance of measuring the ground force reaction on the lower limbs. However, measuring load rate estimates is not standardised and requires specialised facilities. The primary aim of this project was to develop a framework to measure load rate outside of the clinical setting. A methodology was developed to monitor load rate estimates using smartphones, as cheap and broadly available technology to achieve this. The method was used to investigate the reliability in ideal conditions, as part of a clinical trial and over an extended timeframe. The novelty of this project was to develop a protocol using smartphones as a surrogate of the lower limbs to monitor patients affected by musculoskeletal conditions. The key finding was that significant challenges are associated with using smartphones, but passive monitoring can be achieved to record substantial amounts of data without patient input. Secondly, load rate provides more qualitative details on the physical activity than measures such as energy expenditure, step count and met-min. However, the interpretation and visualisation of load rate are more complex. To conclude, this thesis tested and verified a methodology that can continuously monitor load rate estimates on the lower limbs. This methodology addresses the need to measure joint loading in activity and time, which can further be used in healthcare for musculoskeletal diseases.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Jimmy Keven Caroupapoulle: orcid.org/0000-0002-4763-5957

ORCID for Philippa Reed: orcid.org/0000-0002-2258-0347

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