scholarly journals 95 Accuracy of Off the Shelf Activity Trackers in Ambulatory Settings in Young and Old Adults

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (Supplement_3) ◽  
pp. iii1-iii16
Author(s):  
John Barton ◽  
Suzanne Timmons ◽  
Salvatore Tedesco ◽  
Marco Sica ◽  
Colum Crowe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Video Recording ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Percentage Error ◽  
Old Adults ◽  
Activity Trackers ◽  
Household Activities ◽  
Gold Standards

Abstract Background Wrist-worn activity trackers have experienced a tremendous growth lately. Robust studies of the comparative accuracy of currently available, mainstream trackers, in young adults versus older adults are still scarce in literature. This study explores the performance of ten trackers estimating steps, travelled distance, and heart-rate measurements against gold-standards in two cohorts of young and old adults. Methods Overall, 38 subjects completed a structured protocol involving walking tasks, simulated household activities, and sedentary activities, including less standardised activities, such as dusting, vacuuming, or playing cards, in order to simulate real-life scenarios. Both wrist-mounted and chest/waist-mounted devices were considered. Gold-standards included treadmill, waist-mounted pedometer, ECG-based chest strap, direct observation or video recording according to the activity and parameter. Results Every tracker shows a decreasing accuracy with slower walking speed, which resulted in a significant step under-counting. Large mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) was displayed by every monitor at slower walking speeds. During household activities, the MAPE in young adults climbing up/down-stairs ranged from 3.91-11.41% and 4.34-11.92% (dominant and non-dominant arm), respectively. However, for the same activities older adults displayed a larger MAPE, at 8.38-19.3% and 10.06-19.01%, respectively. Chest-worn or waist-worn devices had more uniform performance. However, unstructured activities (dusting, vacuuming, playing cards), and accuracy in people using a walking aid represent a challenge for all consumer-level trackers as evidenced by large MAPE. Poor performance in travelled distance estimation was also evident during walking at low speeds and household activities for both cohorts. Conclusion This study shows a number of limitations to current, mainstream consumer-level wrist-based activity trackers, requiring caution if adopted in healthcare, whether clinical or research. This study demonstrates the particular deficits in commercial devices for use in an aging population, and provides some indications on how to best measure these health parameters in this population.

Memory Skill Acquisition for Young and Old Adults: Does Training Order Affect Learning?

1994 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Clark ◽  
Wendy A. Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Skill Acquisition ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Memory Search ◽  
Old Adults ◽  
Older Subjects ◽  
Memory Skill ◽  
Order Of Training ◽  
Strategy I

The purpose of the present experiment was to identify the effects of altering the order of training for a memory search task in old and young adults. We provided subjects with extensive practice on consistently mapped (CM) and variably mapped (VM) versions of a memory search task. Half of the subjects in each age group received CM training followed by VM training and the other half received VM first followed by CM. Based on previous findings (Fisk, Rogers, and Giambra, 1990), in which older adults did not switch to a more efficient search strategy (i. e., from serial exhaustive to serial self-terminating) we predicted that older subjects who received VM training first would not adopt the most efficient strategy on subsequent CM training compared to old adults who received the CM training first. The results supported our prediction: namely, the comparison slopes were shallower (i. e., more efficient) for the older adults who received CM training first, relative to those who received VM training prior to the CM training. Order of practice did not significantly affect the performance of the young adults. These data have important implications for the development of training programs in which subjects will be required to learn several task components.

Validity, Reliability and Sensitivity to Change of Three Consumer-grade Activity Trackers in Controlled and Free-living Conditions among Older Adults (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaja Kastelic ◽  
Marina Dobnik ◽  
Stefan Loefler ◽  
Christian Hofer ◽  
Nejc Šarabon
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Intraclass Correlation ◽  
Sleep Time ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
Percentage Error ◽  
Sensitivity To Change ◽  
Free Living ◽  
Activity Trackers ◽  
Free Living Conditions

BACKGROUND Wrist worn consumer-grade activity trackers are popular devices, developed mainly for personal use, but with the potential to be used also for clinical and research purposes. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to explore the validity, reliability and sensitivity to change of movement behaviours metrics from three popular activity trackers (POLAR Vantage M, Garmin Vivosport and Garmin Vivoactive 4s) in controlled and free-living conditions when worn by older adults. METHODS Participants (n = 28; 74 ± 5 years) underwent a videotaped laboratory protocol while wearing all three activity trackers. On a separate occasion, participants wore one (randomly assigned) activity tracker and a research grade physical activity monitor ActiGraph wGT3X-BT simultaneously for six consecutive days for comparisons. RESULTS Both Garmin activity trackers showed excellent performance for step counts, with mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) below 20 % and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC2,1) above 0.90 (P < .05), while Polar Vantage M substantially over counted steps (MAPE = 84 % and ICC2,1 = 0.37 for free-living conditions). MAPE for sleep time was within 10 % for all the trackers tested, while far beyond 20 % for all the physical activity and calories burned outputs. Both Garmin trackers showed fair agreement (ICC2,1 = 0.58–0.55) for measuring calories burned when compared with ActiGraph. CONCLUSIONS Garmin Vivoactive 4s showed overall best performance, especially for measuring steps and sleep time in healthy older adults. Minimal detectible change was consistently lower for an average day measures than for a single day measure, but still relatively high. The results provided in this study could be used to guide choice on activity trackers aiming for different purposes – individual use/care, longitudinal monitoring or in clinical trial setting.

Arithmetic Stroop Interference as a Function of Age: Maintenance and Modification of Automatic Processes

1989 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 169-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy A. Rogers ◽  
Arthur D. Fisk
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Stroop Interference ◽  
Automatic Process ◽  
Practical Training ◽  
Automatic Processes ◽  
Arithmetical Operation ◽  
Old Adults ◽  
Multiplication Tables ◽  
Young Subjects

This experiment investigated whether well-learned “automatic” processes remain stable as a function of age, as well as whether the ability to modify automatic processes is disrupted for older adults. We used an arithmetic “Stroop” task. Nineteen young (mean 22) and 19 old adults (mean 75) participated in three sessions for a total of 450 trials. The young subjects had faster verification times, overall, than the old adults. Both young and old subjects showed significant Stroop interference. These results support the hypothesis that automatic processes, in this case access of addition and multiplication tables, are maintained for old adults. Furthermore, both groups reduced their RT with practice. For the young adults, there was a decrease in interference with practice suggesting that they were learning to inhibit the automatic process of performing the arithmetical operation. However, the old adults showed no significant decrease in interference, which implies that they were impaired in their ability to inhibit automatic processes, even when those processes interfered with performance. Theoretical and practical training implications are discussed.

scholarly journals Validity Evaluation of the Fitbit Charge2 and the Garmin vivosmart HR+ in Free-Living Environments in an Older Adult Cohort (Preprint)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salvatore Tedesco ◽  
Marco Sica ◽  
Andrea Ancillao ◽  
Suzanne Timmons ◽  
John Barton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Energy Expenditure ◽  
Vigorous Physical Activity ◽  
Living Environment ◽  
Percentage Error ◽  
Free Living ◽  
Healthy Older Adults ◽  
Activity Trackers ◽  
Sleep Parameters ◽  
Highly Correlated

BACKGROUND Few studies have investigated the validity of mainstream wrist-based activity trackers in healthy older adults in real life, as opposed to laboratory settings. OBJECTIVE This study explored the performance of two wrist-worn trackers (Fitbit Charge 2 and Garmin vivosmart HR+) in estimating steps, energy expenditure, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) levels, and sleep parameters (total sleep time [TST] and wake after sleep onset [WASO]) against gold-standard technologies in a cohort of healthy older adults in a free-living environment. METHODS Overall, 20 participants (>65 years) took part in the study. The devices were worn by the participants for 24 hours, and the results were compared against validated technology (ActiGraph and New-Lifestyles NL-2000i). Mean error, mean percentage error (MPE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), intraclass correlation (ICC), and Bland-Altman plots were computed for all the parameters considered. RESULTS For step counting, all trackers were highly correlated with one another (ICCs>0.89). Although the Fitbit tended to overcount steps (MPE=12.36%), the Garmin and ActiGraph undercounted (MPE 9.36% and 11.53%, respectively). The Garmin had poor ICC values when energy expenditure was compared against the criterion. The Fitbit had moderate-to-good ICCs in comparison to the other activity trackers, and showed the best results (MAPE=12.25%), although it underestimated calories burned. For MVPA levels estimation, the wristband trackers were highly correlated (ICC=0.96); however, they were moderately correlated against the criterion and they overestimated MVPA activity minutes. For the sleep parameters, the ICCs were poor for all cases, except when comparing the Fitbit with the criterion, which showed moderate agreement. The TST was slightly overestimated with the Fitbit, although it provided good results with an average MAPE equal to 10.13%. Conversely, WASO estimation was poorer and was overestimated by the Fitbit but underestimated by the Garmin. Again, the Fitbit was the most accurate, with an average MAPE of 49.7%. CONCLUSIONS The tested well-known devices could be adopted to estimate steps, energy expenditure, and sleep duration with an acceptable level of accuracy in the population of interest, although clinicians should be cautious in considering other parameters for clinical and research purposes.

scholarly journals Validity, Reliability and Sensitivity to Change of Three Consumer-Grade Activity Trackers in Controlled and Free-Living Conditions among Older Adults

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (18) ◽  
pp. 6245
Author(s):  
Kaja Kastelic ◽  
Marina Dobnik ◽  
Stefan Löfler ◽  
Christian Hofer ◽  
Nejc Šarabon
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Intraclass Correlation ◽  
Sleep Time ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
Percentage Error ◽  
Sensitivity To Change ◽  
Free Living ◽  
Step Counts ◽  
Activity Trackers ◽  
Free Living Conditions

Wrist-worn consumer-grade activity trackers are popular devices, developed mainly for personal use. This study aimed to explore the validity, reliability and sensitivity to change of movement behaviors metrics from three activity trackers (Polar Vantage M, Garmin Vivoactive 4s and Garmin Vivosport) in controlled and free-living conditions when worn by older adults. Participants (n = 28; 74 ± 5 years) underwent a videotaped laboratory protocol while wearing all three trackers. On a separate occasion, participants (n = 17 for each of the trackers) wore one (randomly assigned) tracker and a research-grade activity monitor ActiGraph wGT3X-BT simultaneously for six consecutive days. Both Garmin trackers showed excellent performance for step counts, with a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) below 20% and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC2,1) above 0.90 (p < 0.05). The MAPE for sleep time was within 10% for all the trackers tested, while it was far beyond 20% for all other movement behaviors metrics. The results suggested that all three trackers could be used for measuring sleep time with a high level of accuracy, and both Garmin trackers could also be used for step counts. All other output metrics should be used with caution. The results provided in this study could be used to guide choice on activity trackers aiming for different purposes—individual use, longitudinal monitoring or in clinical trial setting.

scholarly journals Discharge Characteristics of Biceps Brachii Motor Units at Recruitment When Older Adults Sustained an Isometric Contraction

2011 ◽  
Vol 105 (2) ◽  
pp. 571-581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Pascoe ◽  
Matthew R. Holmes ◽  
Roger M. Enoka
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Isometric Contraction ◽  
Biceps Brachii ◽  
Motor Units ◽  
Discharge Characteristics ◽  
Recruitment Threshold ◽  
Old Adults ◽  
Threshold Force ◽  
Target Force

The purpose of this study was to compare the discharge characteristics of motor units recruited during an isometric contraction that was sustained with the elbow flexor muscles by older adults at target forces that were less than the recruitment threshold force of each isolated motor unit. The discharge times of 27 single motor units were recorded from the biceps brachii in 11 old adults (78.8 ± 5.9 yr). The target force was set at either a relatively small (6.6 ± 3.7% maximum) or large (11.4 ± 4.5% maximum) difference below the recruitment threshold force and the contraction was sustained until the motor unit was recruited and discharged action potentials for about 60 s. The time to recruitment was longer for the large target-force difference ( P = 0.001). At recruitment, the motor units discharged repetitively for both target-force differences, which contrasts with data from young adults when motor units discharged intermittently at recruitment for the large difference between recruitment threshold force and target force. The coefficient of variation (CV) for the first five interspike intervals (ISIs) increased from the small (18.7 ± 7.9) to large difference (35.0 ± 10.2%, P = 0.008) for the young adults, but did not differ for the two target force differences for the old adults (26.3 ± 14.7 to 24.0 ± 13.1%, P = 0.610). When analyzed across the discharge duration, the average CV for the ISI decreased similarly for the two target-force differences ( P = 0.618) in old adults. These findings contrast with those of young adults and indicate that the integration of synaptic input during sustained contractions differs between young and old adults.

Assessing Articulatory Speed Performance as a Potential Factor of Slowed Speech in Older Adults

2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antje S. Mefferd ◽  
Erin E. Corder
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Speaking Rate ◽  
Middle Aged ◽  
Lower Lip ◽  
Old Adults ◽  
3 Dimensional ◽  
Speed Performance ◽  
Middle Aged Adults ◽  
Peak Speed

Purpose To improve our understanding about the underlying factors of aging-related speaking rate decline, the authors sought to determine if lip and jaw speeds are physiologically constrained in older adults. Method Thirty-six females—10 young adults (ages 22–27 years), 9 middle-aged adults (ages 45–55 years), 10 young-old adults (65–74 years), and 7 very old adults (ages 87–95 years)—completed metronome-paced syllable repetitions while moving the lower lip or jaw to a fixed target with each repetition. Metronome paces incrementally increased from 1.4 Hz to 6.7 Hz. Lip and jaw movements were tracked using a 3-dimensional motion capture system. Results Older adults' maximum percent increase in lip and jaw peak speed was comparable to or tended to be even greater than that of middle-aged and young adults. By contrast, lip and jaw stiffness, indexed by peak speed–displacement ratios, tended to decrease with age during fast and very fast repetition rates and were associated with mildly prolonged movement durations. Conclusions The findings suggest that lip and jaw speeds are not constrained in older adults. The trend of reduced stiffness during fast rates, however, suggests that fine-force regulation becomes difficult for older adults. Thus, older adults may implement reduced habitual speaking rates as a behavioral strategy to compensate for diminished articulatory control.

scholarly journals Age Differences in the Control of Looking Behavior: Do You Know Where Your Eyes Have Been?

2000 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 210-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur F. Kramer ◽  
Sowon Hahn ◽  
David E. Irwin ◽  
Jan Theeuwes
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Visual Search ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Oculomotor Capture ◽  
Old Adults ◽  
Task Irrelevant

Previous research has shown that during visual search young and old adults' eye movements are equivalently influenced by the appearance of task-irrelevant abrupt onsets. The finding of age-equivalent oculomotor capture is quite surprising in light of the abundant research suggesting that older adults exhibit poorer inhibitory control than young adults on a variety of different tasks. In the present study, we examined the hypothesis that oculomotor capture is age invariant when subjects' awareness of the appearance of task-irrelevant onsets is low, but that older adults will have more difficulty than young adults in inhibiting reflexive eye movements to task-irrelevant onsets when awareness of these objects is high. Our results were consistent with the level-of-awareness hypothesis. Young and old adults showed equivalent patterns of oculomotor capture with equiluminant onsets, but older adults misdirected their eyes to bright onsets more often than young adults did.

The Effects of Divided Attention on Encoding- and Retrieval-Related Brain Activity: A PET Study of Younger and Older Adults

2000 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 775-792 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole D. Anderson ◽  
Tetsuya Iidaka ◽  
Roberto Cabeza ◽  
Shitij Kapur ◽  
Anthony R. McIntosh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Divided Attention ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Old Adults ◽  
Encoding And Retrieval

Divided attention (DA) disrupts episodic encoding, but has little effect on episodic retrieval. Furthermore, normal aging is associated with episodic memory impairments, and when young adults are made to encode information under DA conditions, their memory performance is reduced and resembles that of old adults working under full attention (FA) conditions. Together, these results suggest a common neurocognitive mechanism by which aging and DA during encoding disrupt memory performance. In the current study, we used PET to investigate younger and older adults' brain activity during encoding and retrieval under FA and DA conditions. In FA conditions, the old adults showed reduced activity in prefrontal regions that younger adults activated preferentially during encoding or retrieval, as well as increased activity in prefrontal regions young adults did not activate. These results indicate that prefrontal functional specificity of episodic memory is reduced by aging. During encoding, DA reduced memory performance, and reduced brain activity in left-prefrontal and medial-temporal lobe regions for both age groups, indicating that DA during encoding interferes with encoding processes that lead to better memory performance. During retrieval, memory performance and retrieval-related brain activity were relatively immune to DA for both age groups, suggesting that DA during retrieval does not interfere with the brain systems necessary for successful retrieval. Finally, left inferior prefrontal activity was reduced similarly by aging and by DA during encoding, suggesting that the behavioral correspondence between these effects is the result of a reduced ability to engage in elaborate encoding operations.

Task-Switching Training and Transfer

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 106-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zsófia Anna Gaál ◽  
István Czigler
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Cognitive Training ◽  
Task Switching ◽  
Difficulty Level ◽  
Training Procedure ◽  
Far Transfer ◽  
Near Transfer ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Transfer Tasks

Abstract. We used task-switching (TS) paradigms to study how cognitive training can compensate age-related cognitive decline. Thirty-nine young (age span: 18–25 years) and 40 older (age span: 60–75 years) women were assigned to training and control groups. The training group received 8 one-hour long cognitive training sessions in which the difficulty level of TS was individually adjusted. The other half of the sample did not receive any intervention. The reference task was an informatively cued TS paradigm with nogo stimuli. Performance was measured on reference, near-transfer, and far-transfer tasks by behavioral indicators and event-related potentials (ERPs) before training, 1 month after pretraining, and in case of older adults, 1 year later. The results showed that young adults had better pretraining performance. The reference task was too difficult for older adults to form appropriate representations as indicated by the behavioral data and the lack of P3b components. But after training older adults reached the level of performance of young participants, and accordingly, P3b emerged after both the cue and the target. Training gain was observed also in near-transfer tasks, and partly in far-transfer tasks; working memory and executive functions did not improve, but we found improvement in alerting and orienting networks, and in the execution of variants of TS paradigms. Behavioral and ERP changes remained preserved even after 1 year. These findings suggest that with an appropriate training procedure older adults can reach the level of performance seen in young adults and these changes persist for a long period. The training also affects the unpracticed tasks, but the transfer depends on the extent of task similarities.

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