Using Consumer-Grade Physical Activity Trackers to Measure Frailty Transitions in Older Critical Care Survivors:...

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Critical Care Medicine
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Critical illness can accelerate frailty in older adults, leading to adverse outcomes.
• Monitoring recovery post-intensive care unit (ICU) discharge is challenging.
• Wearable devices offer a promising, patient-accepted tool for assessing frailty.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the utility of wearable device data for tracking frailty progression in critical illness survivors.
• To explore the relationship between wearable sensor data and clinical frailty measures.

Main Methods:

• Observational study of 12 older critical illness survivors.
• Frailty assessed using the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) at ICU admission, hospital discharge, and 4-week follow-up.
• Wearable device collected data on step count, physical activity, sleep, and heart rate (HR) between hospital discharge and 4-week follow-up.

Main Results:

• CFS scores significantly increased post-critical illness.
• Frail survivors had lower daily step counts compared to non-frail survivors.
• Daily step count and average heart rate correlated strongly with frailty scores at follow-up.

Conclusions:

• Consumer-grade wearable devices can detect associations with frailty progression in critical illness survivors.
• Step count and heart rate data from wearables may aid in monitoring vulnerable older adults.
• This approach could facilitate early identification and intervention for at-risk populations.