Level of activities associated with mobility during everyday life in patients with chronic congestive heart failure as measured with an "activity monitor"

Abstract

Background and purpose: 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."

Subjects and 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).

Discussion and conclusion: The results show how activities associated with mobility during everyday life may be restricted in people with CHF.