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Accuracy of consumer-based activity trackers as measuring tool and coaching device in breast and colorectal cancer survivors

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Abstract

Purpose

Consumer-based activity trackers are used to measure and promote PA. We studied the accuracy of a wrist- and waist-worn activity tracker in cancer survivors and compared these results to a healthy age-matched control group.

Methods

Twenty-two cancer survivors and 35 healthy subjects wore an activity tracker at the waist and at the wrist combined with a reference activity monitor at the waist (Dynaport Movemonitor). The devices were worn for 14 consecutive days. The mean daily step count from both activity trackers was compared with the reference activity monitor to investigate accuracy and agreement (paired t-test, intraclass correlation, Bland–Altman plots). To evaluate the accuracy as a coaching tool, day-by-day differences within patients were calculated. The Kendall correlation coefficient was used to test the consistency of ranking daily steps between the activity trackers and the reference activity monitor.

Results

The wrist-worn wearable significantly overestimated the daily step count in the cancer group (mean ± SDΔ: + 1305 (2685) steps per day; p = 0.033) and in the healthy control group (mean ± SDΔ: + 1598 (2927) steps per day; p = 0.003). The waist-worn wearable underestimated the step count in both groups, although this was not statistically significant. As a coaching device, moderate (r = 0.642–0.670) and strong (r = 0.733–0.738) accuracy was found for the wrist- and waist-worn tracker, respectively, for detecting day-by-day variability in both populations.

Conclusion

Our results show that wrist-worn activity trackers significantly overestimate daily step count in both cancer survivors and healthy control subjects. Based on the accuracy, in particular, the waist-worn activity tracker could possibly be used as a coaching tool.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, ADG.

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Funding

The study was funded by KU Leuven.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, KU Leuven, University of Leuven, ON4 Herestraat 49 – box 1510, 3000, Louvain, Belgium

    An De Groef, Anne Asnong, Astrid Blondeel, Pieter Ginis, Alice Nieuwboer, Tessa De Vrieze, Nele Devoogdt, Thierry Troosters, Heleen Demeyer & Inge Geraerts

  2. Department of Rehabilitation Sciences and Physiotherapy, MOVANT Research Group, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

    An De Groef & Tessa De Vrieze

  3. Pulmonary Rehabilitation, Respiratory Department, UZ Leuven - University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Astrid Blondeel & Thierry Troosters

  4. Department of Vascular Surgery, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Center for Lymphedema, UZ Leuven - University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Nele Devoogdt

  5. Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Heleen Demeyer

Authors
  1. An De Groef
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  2. Anne Asnong
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  3. Astrid Blondeel
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Contributions

ADG, TT, HD, IG, ND, AN conceived and desgined the study and analyses;

ADG, AA, TDV collected the data;

ADG, AB, HD performed the analyses;

ADG, AB, HD wrote the paper.

All co-authors reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to An De Groef.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was approved by the local ethics committee of UZ Leuven (reference number: S-60227). The study is reported according to the STROBE guidelines. All participants signed informed consent.

Consent for publication

N/a.

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interest to declare.

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Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

An De Groef and Anne Asnong shared first authors.

Heleen Demeyer and Inge Geraerts shared last authors.

Support statement: AB is predoctoral research fellow, and ADG, TDV, and HDM are postdoctoral research fellows of the FWO-Flanders.

Supplementary Information

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Supplementary file1 (DOCX 107 KB)

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De Groef, A., Asnong, A., Blondeel, A. et al. Accuracy of consumer-based activity trackers as measuring tool and coaching device in breast and colorectal cancer survivors. Support Care Cancer 31, 596 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-023-08061-2

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