Evaluation of the SenseWear activity monitor during exercise in cystic fibrosis and in health.
OBJECTIVE
Determine the SenseWear Pro3 Armband (SWA) accuracy for estimating energy expenditure (EE) and step count during treadmill walking in cystic fibrosis (CF) compared to healthy adults.


OBJECTIVE
SWA estimation of EE would be less accurate for CF, than for healthy subjects, due to interference with the SWA skin sensors caused by the high salt concentration in the sweat of CF subjects.


METHODS
17 CF (mean age 26 yr; FEV1 54% predicted) and 17 age-matched control subjects walked slightly faster than their comfortable pace on a treadmill for 20 min, whilst simultaneously wearing the SWA and breathing through an open-circuit indirect calorimetry (IC) system. Subjects' steps were manually counted.


RESULTS
Combined EE data from all subjects showed no significant difference in EE measured by IC (6.0+/-3.4 kcal min(-1)) compared to the SWA estimate (6.3+/-2.5 kcal min(-1)), however the SWA significantly overestimated EE at low exercise intensities and underestimated EE at high exercise intensities. Correlations between EE values, estimated by the SWA and measured by IC, were greater than 0.85 (p<0.001) for both the CF and control group. Standard multiple regression showed that diagnosis of CF independently predicted less than 0.1% of the difference between the IC measure of EE and the SWA estimate. The SWA recorded slightly but significantly fewer steps (113+/-12 steps min(-1)) than the manual count (119+/-9 steps min(-1)).


CONCLUSIONS
Diagnosis of CF had no significant negative impact on the accuracy of the SWA estimate of EE. The SWA provided a reasonably accurate estimate of EE and step count during treadmill walking.
Dwyer
Tiffany Jane
TJ
Discipline of Physiotherapy, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia. tdwyer@med.usyd.edu.au
Alison
Jennifer Ailsey
JA
McKeough
Zoe Jane
ZJ
Elkins
Mark Russell
MR
Bye
Peter Thomas Patrick
PT
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002153:Calorimetry, Indirect / Q000295:instrumentation; D003550:Cystic Fibrosis / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004734:Energy Metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D005080:Exercise Test / Q000295:instrumentation*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018670:Monitoring, Ambulatory / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013542:Sweat / Q000737:chemistry; D055815:Young Adult