title: Validity of activity monitors in wheelchair users: A systematic review.
abstract: Assessing physical activity (PA) in manual wheelchair users (MWUs) is challenging because of their different movement patterns in comparison to the ambulatory population. The aim of this review was to investigate the validity of portable monitors in quantifying PA in MWUs. A systematic literature search was performed. The data source was full reports of validation and evaluation studies in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. Eligible articles between January 1, 1999, and September 18, 2015, were identified in three databases: PubMed, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and Scopus. A total of 164 articles (158 from the databases and 6 from the citation/reference tracking) were identified, and 29 met the eligibility criteria. Two investigators independently extracted the characteristics from each selected article following a predetermined protocol and completed seven summary tables describing the study characteristics and key outcomes. In the identified studies, the monitors were used to assess three types of PA measures: energy cost, user movement, and wheelchair movement. The customized algorithms/monitors did not estimate energy cost in MWUs as well as the commercial monitors did in the ambulatory population; however, they showed fair accuracy in measuring both wheelchair and user movements.
authors.affiliation: Human Engineering Research Laboratories, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Pittsburgh Healthcare System, Pittsburgh, PA.|Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.
authors.forename: KaLai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tsang
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Therapy, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.
authors.forename: Shivayogi V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Hiremath
authors.affiliation: Human Engineering Research Laboratories, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Pittsburgh Healthcare System, Pittsburgh, PA.|Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.
authors.forename: Theresa M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Crytzer
authors.affiliation: Human Engineering Research Laboratories, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Pittsburgh Healthcare System, Pittsburgh, PA.|Departments of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and.
authors.forename: Brad E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Dicianno
authors.affiliation: Human Engineering Research Laboratories, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Pittsburgh Healthcare System, Pittsburgh, PA.|Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.|Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ding
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D006233:Persons with Disabilities; D004734:Energy Metabolism; D015444:Exercise; D006801:Humans; D018670:Monitoring, Ambulatory / Q000295:instrumentation*; D009068:Movement; D014910:Wheelchairs
keywords: activities of daily living; activity tracking; energy expenditure; manual wheelchair users; motion sensors; physical activities; physical fitness; portable activity monitors; prediction models; wheelchair use