Wearable activity monitors encourage walking in older adults

The active use of wearable devices promotes walking speed in older adults, which in turn may lead to better functional and survival outcomes in the future, according to a recent study.

“The results of the current study clearly identified potential benefits of using wearable devices without specific physical activities programmes in middle-aged and older adults,” the researchers said. “The utilization of wearable devices significantly prevented walking speed slowing in a 12-month period.”

The study included 369 community-dwelling older adults (aged 50–85 years, 32.3 percent men) who had been given a wearable device to monitor their physical activity. A total of 128 were deemed as active users who had completed data transmission for >30 days during the follow-up period; 98 used the device for >3 days but failed to qualify as active users and were categorized as usual users. The remaining 93 participants were designated as nonactive users.

Relative to nonactive users, participants who actively used their monitoring devices had significantly superior nutrition (p=0.046), bone mineral density T-score (p_trend=0.02), and cognitive performance (p=0.006). Several serum parameters, such as aspartate aminotransferase and adrenocorticotropic hormone, were also better in active users. [Aging 2021;doi:10.18632/aging.203383]

The researchers then performed multivariable linear regression to assess the change of walking speed over 12 months of follow-up. Active users were 0.16 m/s faster than nonactive users, a statistically significant difference (p=0.034). In contrast, usual users were only 0.10 m/s faster than nonactive users, which failed to reach significance (p=0.228).

Compared to usual users, active device users also showed significantly higher daily walking steps (p=0.001) as well as steps taken during weekdays (p=0.001) and during holidays (p=0.01).

Stepwise multinomial logistic regression further showed that these differences could translate to better outcomes, with active device users having better cognitive performance (odds ratio, 1.3, 95 percent confidence interval, 1.1–1.5; p=0.005) than comparators with lower degrees of use.

None of the other physical assessment parameters significantly differed between active vs nonactive users, including handgrip strength, chair stand time, and the number of frail phenotypes. There were likewise no significant between-group differences in blood pressure.

“Results of this study implied that people with better health and healthy lifestyles were also more likely to use the wearable devices. However, it is also possible that active use of wearable devices may improve users’ lifestyles and their functional performance,” the researchers said.

Important study limitations include the failure to conduct sex-specific analysis, the lack of attention on the participants’ personal interests toward physical activity, and a design underpowered to investigate causal links among variables. “The benefits of active wearable device use deserve further attention [from] healthcare professionals and policymakers as [a] tool to promote healthy longevity,” the researchers said.