title: Level of activities associated with mobility during everyday life in patients with chronic congestive heart failure as measured with an "activity monitor".
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Because of dyspnea and fatigue, patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) may be restricted in the performance of normal everyday activities. The aim of this study was to obtain a preliminary indication of the level of activities associated with mobility during everyday life and between-day variance in activities in patients with mild to moderate CHF as measured with an "Activity Monitor."
  
  
  METHODS
  The "Activity Monitor" is based on long-term (>24 hours) ambulatory monitoring of signals from accelerometers fixed to the subject's body during everyday activities with the aim of assessing the level of activities associated with mobility. Measurements were obtained over 3 days from 5 male subjects with CHF (mean age=64 years, SD=5, range=59-72) and over 2 days from 5 matched comparison subjects (mean age=65 years, SD=4, range=61-71).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Mean duration of movement-related activities (walking, cycling, or general movement) (expressed as a percentage of the duration of the measurement day) was lower in the subjects with CHF (X=3.9, SD=1.5, range=2.2-6.7) than in the comparison subjects (X=11.3, SD=3.0, range=6.6-14.1). In the patients, between-day variance was smaller for different weekdays (eg, Monday versus Tuesday) than for similar weekdays (eg, 2 Mondays) (1.11% and 7.28%, respectively).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results show how activities associated with mobility during everyday life may be restricted in people with CHF.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. vandenberg@revd.azr.nl
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: van den Berg-Emons
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bussmann
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Balk
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Keijzer-Oster
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Stam
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D002908:Chronic Disease; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018670:Monitoring, Ambulatory / Q000295:instrumentation; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted