Wearable technologies for monitoring aquatic exercises: A systematic review.
Cecilia Monoli, Jeffrey A Tuhtan, Luigi Piccinini and 1 others
PMID 36437591WHAT IT FOUND
Most aquatic exercise studies use land-based tools, with very few using wearable sensors.
Current wearable research is fragmented, lacks long-term data, and focuses mostly on healthy adults. There is no standardized protocol for monitoring movement in water.
Key findings
01Only 27 of 572 eligible articles used inertial-based wearable devices to study aquatic physical activity.
02None of the reviewed studies included multiple measurements over a complete rehabilitation protocol, and all had a maximum of 10 repetitions performed in one day.
03The majority of wearable studies involved healthy adults or elderly subjects, with very few focusing on patients with specific clinical conditions.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The review excluded studies on swimming, diving, and recreational water sports, limiting generalizability to those activities. The search was limited to English-language articles from 2000 onward. The qualitative synthesis of wearable studies was based on only 23 articles, which is a small sample for a systematic review. Most included studies had small sample sizes (typically 10-50 participants) and focused on healthy subjects, reducing applicability to clinical populations.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The research was funded by the Estonian Centre of Excellence in IT (EXCITE) and the European Regional Development Fund.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the existence of wearable technology in these studies as evidence of clinical efficacy. The review found no longitudinal data or standardized protocols, meaning current wearable applications in aquatic therapy are largely experimental and lack evidence for improving patient outcomes over time.