Ambulatory Activity Monitoring
Progress in Measurement of Activity, Posture, and Specific Motion Patterns in Daily Life
Abstract
Behavior is central to psychology in almost any definition. Although observable activity is a core aspect of behavior, assessment strategies have tended to focus on emotional, cognitive, or physiological responses. When physical activity is assessed, it is done so mostly with questionnaires. Converging evidence of only a moderate association between self-reports of physical activity and objectively measured physical activity does raise questions about the validity of these self-reports. Ambulatory activity monitoring, defined as the measurement strategy to assess physical activity, posture, and movement patterns continuously in everyday life, has made major advances over the last decade and has considerable potential for further application in the assessment of observable activity, a core aspect of behavior. With new piezoresistive sensors and advanced computer algorithms, the objective measurement of physical activity, posture, and movement is much more easily achieved and measurement precision has improved tremendously. With this overview, we introduce to the reader some recent developments in ambulatory activity monitoring. We will elucidate the discrepancies between objective and subjective reports of activity, outline recent methodological developments, and offer the reader a framework for developing insight into the state of the art in ambulatory activity-monitoring technology, discuss methodological aspects of time-based design and psychometric properties, and demonstrate recent applications. Although not yet main stream, ambulatory activity monitoring – especially in combination with the simultaneous assessment of emotions, mood, or physiological variables – provides a comprehensive methodology for psychology because of its suitability for explaining behavior in context.
References
2003). Das Erleben von Spannung – eine kontrollierte Studie
([The experience of distress – A controlled study] . Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin.2008). Variations of rest-activity rhythm and sleep-wake in schizophrenic patients versus healthy subjects: An actigraphic comparative study. Biological Rhythm Research, 39, 69–78.
(2007). Psychology as the science of self-reports and finger movements: Whatever happened to actual behavior? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 396–403.
(2007). Hyperactive night and day? Actigraphy studies in adult ADHD: A baseline comparison and the effect of methylphenidate. Sleep: Journal of Sleep and Sleep Disorders Research, 30, 433–442.
(1998). Ambulatory monitoring of mobility-related activities in rehabilitation medicine. Delft: Eburon.
(2007). Analyzing the favorable effects of physical exercise: Relationships between physical fitness, fatigue, and functioning in Guillain-Barre syndrome and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy. Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, 39, 121–125.
(2008). Effect of wearing an activity monitor on the amount of daily manual wheelchair propulsion in subjects with spinal cord injury. Manuscript submitted for publication.
(2001). Measuring daily behavior using ambulatory accelerometry: The activity monitor. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 33, 349–356.
(1998). Techniques for measurement and assessment of mobility in rehabilitation: A theoretical approach. Clinical Rehabilitation, 12, 455–464.
(1998). Quantification of physical activities by means of ambulatory accelerometry: A validation study. Psychophysiology, 35, 488–496.
(2007). The effect of feedback and information on children’s pedometer step-counts at school. Pediatric Exercise Science, 19, 29–38.
(2005). The technology of accelerometry-based activity monitors: Current and future. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 37, 490–500.
(1994). The temperament and character inventory: A guide to its development and use. Washington University, St. Louis.
(2000). Physical activity patterns in normal, overweight, and obese individuals using minute-by-minute accelerometry. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 54, 887–894.
(2007). Accelerometers and pedometers: Methodology and clinical application. Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care, 10, 597–603.
(2008). Acute impact of immediate release methylphenidate administered three times a day on sleep in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 33, 368–379.
(2001). Actigraphy and parental ratings of sleep in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Sleep, 24, 303–312.
(1999). Ambulatory blood-pressure monitoring is associated with reduced physical activity during everyday life. Psychosomatic Medicine, 61, 806–811.
(2004). Youth recall and TriTrac accelerometer estimates of physical activity levels. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 36, 525–532.
(2000). Does actigraphy differentiate ADHD subtypes in a clinical research setting?. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 39, 752–760.
(2006). Clinimetric review of motion sensors in children and adolescents. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 59, 670–680.
(2004). Ambulantes psychophysiologisches Monitoring in der psychiatrischen Forschung
([Ambulatory psychophysiological monitoring in psychiatric research] . Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.2007). Psychological and psychophysiological ambulatory monitoring – A review of hardware and software solutions. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 23, 214–226.
(008). Distress and affective dysregulation in patients with borderline personality disorder: A psychophysiological ambulatory monitoring study. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 196, 314–320.
. (2006). A valence-dependent group-specific recall bias of retrospective self-reports: A study of borderline personality disorder in everyday life. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 194, 774–779.
. (22009). Ambulatory assessment – An innovative and promising approach for clinical psychology. European Psychologist.
(2007). Psychophysiological ambulatory assessment of affective dysregulation in borderline personality disorder. Psychiatry Research, 150, 265–275.
(1996). Concurrent assessment of blood pressure, physical activity, and emotional state in natural settings. In , Ambulatory assessment: Computer-assisted psychological and psychophysiological methods in monitoring and field studies (pp. 165–187). Seattle: Hogrefe & Huber.
(2006). Assessment in daily life. A review of computer-assisted methodologies and applications in psychology and psychophysiology, years 2000–2005. Retrieved April 29, 2008, from www.ambulatory-assessment.org
(1997). Assessment of posture and motion by multichannel piezoresistive accelerometer recordings. Psychophysiology, 34, 607–612.
(2002). Alltagsnahe Psychologie: Datenerhebung im Feld mit hand-held PC und physiologischem Mess-System
([Psychology of daily life based on hand-held PC and physiological recording system] . Bern: Huber.1996). A multichannel investigation of physical activity. Journal of Psychophysiology, 10, 209–217.
(2001). Progress in ambulatory assessment: Computer-assisted psychological and psychophysiological methods in monitoring and field studies. Seattle: Hogrefe & Huber.
(2007). Ambulatory assessment – Monitoring behavior in daily life settings. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 23, 206–213.
(2001). Assessment of posture, motion, and hand tremor by calibrated accelerometry. In , Progress in ambulatory assessment (pp. 233–256). Seattle: Hogrefe & Huber.
(2000). Motion pattern and posture: Correctly assessed by calibrated accelerometers. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 32, 450–457.
(1999). Detection of posture and motion by accelerometry: A validation study in ambulatory monitoring. Computers in Human Behavior, 15, 571–583.
(004). Physical training and fatigue, fitness, and quality of life in Guillain-Barre syndrome and CIDP. Neurology, 63, 2393–2395.
. (22007). Preliminary evaluation of reliability and criterion validity of Actiwatch-Score. Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development, 44, 223–230.
(2005). Walking in postpoliomyelitis syndrome: The relationships between time-scored tests, walking in daily life, and perceived mobility problems. Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, 37, 142–146.
(2009). Noninvasive psychophysiological ambulatory recordings: Study design and data analysis strategies. European Psychologist.
(2005). Analysis and decomposition of accelerometric signals of trunk and thigh obtained during the sit-to-stand movement. Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing, 43, 265–272.
(2007). Physical activity and femoral neck bone strength during childhood: The Iowa Bone Development Study. Bone, 41, 216–222.
(2007). Monitoring technology for the elderly patient. Expert Review of Medical Devices, 4, 267–277.
(1997). Motor activity and daily variation of symptom intensity in depressed patients. Neuropsychobiology, 36, 57–61.
(003). Practice parameters for the role of actigraphy in the study of sleep and circadian rhythms: An update for 2002. Sleep, 26, 337–341.
. (22005). A description of an accelerometer-based mobility monitoring technique. Medical Engineering and Physics, 27, 497–504.
(2004). Classification of basic daily movements using a triaxial accelerometer. Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing, 42, 679–687.
(2007). An empirical analysis of the obtrusiveness of and participants’ compliance with the electronically activated recorder (EAR). European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 23, 248–257.
(007). Promoting walking with pedometers in the community: The step-by-step trial. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 32, 290–297.
. (22004). Heart and emotion: Ambulatory monitoring studies in everyday life. Seattle: Hogrefe & Huber.
(2001). Freiburger Monitoring-System (FMS)
([Freiburg Monitoring System (FMS)] . Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.2007). Correlation between actigraphy and nurses’ observation of activity in dementia. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 22, 84–86.
(2006). Plädoyer für theorieadäquate Methoden in gewissen Domänen der Psychologie
([Plea for a theory-adequate methodology in certain domains of psychology] . Verhaltenstherapie and Psychosoziale Praxis, 38, 319–330.1983). A naturalistic assessment of the motor activity of hyperactive boys. I. Comparison with normal controls. Archives of General Psychiatry, 40, 681–687.
(2007). New methods in ambulatory blood-pressure monitoring: Interactive monitoring and detection of posture and movement patterns. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 390–398.
(1986). “Situational hyperactivity” in a US clinical setting. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 27, 639–646.
(2006). Activity measurement. In , Clinician’s handbook of child behavioral assessment (pp. 125–157). San Diego: Elsevier Academic Press.
(2008). Objective measurement of physical activity and sedentary behavior: Review with new data. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 93, 614–619.
(2008). Patterns of habitual activity across weekdays and weekend days in 9–11-year-old children. Preventive Medicine, 46, 317–324.
(2006). Effects of atomoxetine and methylphenidate on sleep in children with ADHD. Sleep: Journal of Sleep and Sleep Disorders Research, 29, 1573–1585.
(2003). Age and gender-related physical activity. A descriptive study in children using accelerometry. Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, 43, 85–89.
(2005). Correlation between a novel upper-limb activity monitor and four other instruments to determine functioning in upper-limb complex regional pain syndrome type I. Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, 37, 108–114.
(2008). Is there an association between everyday-life physical activity and psychological well-being? – A methodological study using ambulatory monitoring. Zeitschrift für Gesundheitspsychologie,16, 2–11.
(1999). 24-hour assessment of tremor activity and posture in Parkinson’s disease by multichannel accelerometry. Journal of Psychophysiology, 13, 245–256.
(2003). Actigraphy in human psychopharmacology: A review. Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental, 18, 39–49.
(1995). Actigraphy and motion analysis: New tools for psychiatry. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 3, 18–35.
(2004). Tremor in Parkinson’s disease: 24-hour monitoring with calibrated accelerometry. Electromyography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 44, 137–146.
(2005). A timely meeting: Objective measurement of physical activity. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 37, 487–489.
(2005). Conducting accelerometer-based activity assessments in field-based research. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 37, 531–543.
(2005). The reliability and validity of two ambulatory monitoring actigraphs. Behavior Research Methods, 37, 492–497.
(2006). Activity measurement. In , Clinician’s handbook of adult behavioral assessment (pp. 85–120). New York: Academic Press.
(2006). Reducing hyperactivity with a feedback actigraph: Initial findings. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 11, 607–617.
(1996). Fully proportional actigraphy: A new instrument. Behavior Research Methods Instruments and Computers, 28, 392–403.
(2000). Healthy people 2010. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
. (2007). Impact of chronic pain on everyday physical activity. European Journal of Pain, 11, 587–593.
(2007). Effect of melatonin on sleep, behavior, and cognition in ADHD and chronic sleep-onset insomnia. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 46, 233–241.
(2007). The physical activity scale for individuals with physical disabilities: Test-retest reliability and comparison with an accelerometer. Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 4, 96–100.
(002). Effect of personality dimensions on the diurnal pattern of motor activity. Journal of Personality, 70, 233–247.
. (22002). 24-hour motor activity after treatment with imipramine or fluvoxamine in major depressive disorder. European Neuropsychopharmacology, 12, 273–278.
(2003). Motor activity and autonomic cardiac functioning in major depressive disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders, 76, 23–30.
(2005). Accelerometer use in physical activity: Best practices and research recommendations. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 37, 582–588.
(2004). Comparison of the computerized ACTIVITYGRAM instrument and the previous day physical-activity recall for assessing physical activity in children. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 75, 370–380.
(2007). Reliability and validity of questions on the youth media campaign longitudinal survey. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 39, 612–621.
(2005). Actigraphic and parent reports of sleep patterns and sleep disorders in children with subtypes of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Sleep, 28, 1437–1445.
(2003). Measurement of human daily physical activity. Obesity Research, 11, 33–40.
(2005). Position-sensing technologies for movement analysis in stroke rehabilitation. Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing, 43, 413–420.
(