Wearable tracker fails to ease flares in spondyloarthritis, but physical activity helps

A wearable activity tracker used to boost physical activity has fallen short of reducing flares and improving performance or quality of life (QoL) of patients with spondyloarthritis (SpA), results of a randomized control trial have shown.

“Nevertheless, this study confirmed the benefits of physical activity on flares, disease activity, QoL, and physical performance in patients with SpA,” the investigators said.

In the trial, 108 patients with SpA were randomly assigned into tracker and nontracker groups. They then underwent assessments of disease activity, performance (6-minute walk test), and QoL (36-item Short Form Health Survey) at the 12th, 24th, and 36th week.

At 12 weeks, both groups showed improvements in the primary outcome of mean change in the number of disease flares (tracker group: ‒0.32, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], ‒0.66 to 0.02; nontracker group: ‒0.38, 95 percent CI, ‒0.68 to ‒0.09). However, the differences between groups did not reach statistical significance (p=0.87).

Performance scores also improved in the two groups at weeks 12, 24, and 36 (p<0.01 for all). In addition, the different dimensions of QoL improved at week 12 (p<0.01). Moderate flares (p<0.01) and performance (p<0.01) improved over time, but the effect of a wearable activity tracker was not significant (p=0.29 and p=0.66, respectively).

“The use of a wearable activity tracker did not affect the number of flares, performance, or QoL of patients with SpA,” the investigators said.