Analyzing walking speeds with ankle and wrist worn accelerometers in a cohort with myotonic dystrophy.
Aura Cecilia Jimenez-Moreno, Sarah J Charman, Nikoletta Nikolenko and 5 others
PMID 29987963WHAT IT FOUND
For adults with myotonic dystrophy, ankle-worn accelerometers tracked walking better than wrist-worn ones.
Wrist readings did not match walking distance in this group, so ankle placement is more useful when measuring walking.
Key findings
01In adults with myotonic dystrophy, ankle-worn accelerometers recorded higher acceleration than wrist-worn devices during comfortable and sub-maximal walking.
02Ankle readings related to walking distance in the myotonic dystrophy group, while wrist readings did not.
03Wrist and ankle readings did not agree with each other across tasks.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The healthy controls were younger and walked farther than the myotonic dystrophy group, so age and fitness may influence the comparison. The sample was small, and findings for the milder subgroup should be read cautiously. The study used only a classical accelerometer metric and short functional tests, so other analysis methods or daily-life monitoring may give different results. The paper did not compare hip or thigh placement, so those options were not evaluated.
Declared interests
Funding came from the NIHR Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre, the Wyck Foundation, and a European Community framework programme. The paper reports no author conflict-of-interest statement beyond this funding.
The easy way to misread this
Do not use wrist and ankle accelerometer readings interchangeably or assume healthy-person activity algorithms apply to myotonic dystrophy. Wrist and ankle readings did not agree, and wrist readings did not track walking distance in the myotonic dystrophy group.