To Live Together Is to Move Together: Social Actigraphy Applied to Healthy Elderly People
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Updated: Jun 18, 2026

Methodology for Establishing a Community-Wide Life Laboratory for Capturing Unobtrusive and Continuous Remote Activity and Health Data
Published on: July 27, 2018
Marco Rabuffetti1, Ennio De Giovannini2, Maurizio Ferrarin1
1IRCCS Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi, 20148 Milano, MI, Italy.
Abstract:
(1) Background: Actigraphic methods allow prolonged monitoring of human physical activity (PA) by wearable sensors in a real-life unsupervised context. They generally do not characterize the social context, and nearby persons can have a modulating effect on the performed PA. The present study aims to apply an existing method for bimanual actigraphy to both components of a marital dyad to verify the level of association between the two PA profiles. Other dyad comparisons complete the overall figure. (2) Methods: Seven-day actigraphic recordings collected from both components of 20 married couples of retired, cohabiting, healthy subjects (age ranging from 58 to 87 years) were considered. (3) Results: PA profiles of a marital dyad are significantly more correlated (coefficient: 0.444) than unrelated couples (0.278). Interestingly, participants' profiles compared with their own recording shifted by 24 h, evidencing an intermediate level of association (0.335). Data from the literature, the high association (0.875) of individual right and left wrist profiles, enforce the analysis. (4) Conclusions: The proposed method, called "social actigraphy", confirmed that the partner has a relevant effect on one's PA profile, thus suggesting involving the partner in programs concerning lifestyle changes and patient rehabilitation.
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