Objective: To determine the feasibility of a remote physical activity monitoring program for Veterans with Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Background: Regular physical activity improves overall health, mitigates motor symptoms of PD and has been speculated to influence disease progression. Personal, socioeconomic, and environmental limitations can limit both physical activity and remote monitoring interventions in the community setting. The evolution of scalable technology platforms and wearable devices affords novel opportunities to monitor daily physical activity over time. The Way to Health (WTH) platform offers remote monitoring that captures and stores activity data from wearable devices using a smartphone application.

Method: Veterans with PD, at a Hoehn and Yahr Stage ≤ 3, were issued a wearable device, worn at the hip, to passively monitor their physical activity over a 2-week period. Participants synced their activity data to the remote WTH monitoring platform and completed assessments that quantified apathy, risk-taking, social isolation, and loneliness. Preliminary feasibility metrics and physical activity data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Final analyses will include generalized linear mixed effects models to examine the potential moderating role of apathy, risk-taking behavior, and social isolation/loneliness on physical activity levels.

Results: Preliminary results indicate participants (n=15) successfully synced their wearable device to the remote platform 92% of the time. Average steps per day were 3497.5 ± 2637.5 across the sample. Participants spent 1183.4 ± 340.9 minutes (19.7 hours) in sedentary activity, 81.8 ± 62.2 minutes in light activity, and 8.4 ± 22.2 minutes in moderate activity. Physical activity levels did not vary by weekday and were stable across the 2-week period.

Conclusion: Utilizing a remote platform to monitor daily activity levels in veterans with PD was feasible. Participants had low physical activity levels and spent majority of their days in sedentary activity. Future interventions can utilize the WTH platform to remotely monitor physical activity and better understand drivers of activity to deliver novel interventions to increase physical activity in PD.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/remote-monitoring-of-physical-activity-in-veterans-with-parkinsons-disease/