A comparison of accelerometer cut-points for measuring physical activity and sedentary time in adolescents with Down syndrome.
Bethany Forseth, Jordan A Carlson, Erik A Willis and 2 others
PMID 34837754WHAT IT FOUND
Different accelerometer cut-points give wildly different activity times for adolescents with Down syndrome, yet rank them similarly.
Do not compare absolute minutes between cut-point methods, but use them for relative comparisons.
Key findings
01McGarty cut-points identified 67.6% of participants meeting MVPA guidelines, whereas Evenson and Romanzini identified none.
02Spearman correlations showed strong relationships between cut-point methods for sedentary, light, and MVPA time, indicating consistent ranking of participants.
03Biases between cut-point methods varied greatly, ranging from 0 to 165 minutes for sedentary time and 1.7 to 65 minutes for MVPA.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
There is no 'gold standard' or criterion method for measuring physical activity in adolescents with Down syndrome, so it is unclear which cut-point is most accurate. The age range of participants (11-17 years) was wider than the ages used to validate most of the cut-point methods. The McGarty cut-points were developed for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) generally, not specifically for Down syndrome. This was a secondary analysis with a small sample size (n=37).
Declared interests
Each author reports no potential competing interests.
The easy way to misread this
Do not compare absolute minutes of physical activity between studies using different cut-points. A patient classified as 'active' by McGarty criteria may be classified as 'inactive' by Evenson criteria, yet both methods may rank them similarly within their own group.