A Feasibility Study of the "Motus" System for Wearable-Based Movement Behaviors at Scale

Area of Science:

• Wearable technology
• Public health surveillance
• Movement behavior analysis

Background:

• The need for detailed, large-scale 24-hour movement behavior data is critical.
• The Motus system was developed using advanced wearable and cloud technology.
• A two-stage evaluation was conducted on randomly selected Danish adults.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and test the feasibility of the Motus system for collecting large-scale movement behavior data.
• To evaluate the system's performance in a real-world setting.
• To identify and address issues for broader implementation.

Main Methods:

• A two-stage study involving national health surveillance participants.
• Stage 1 involved 7735 adults using an initial Motus version; Stage 2 used a revised version with 6993 adults.
• Data collection included wearable sensor data, app-based self-reporting, and feasibility questionnaires.

Main Results:

• Stage 1 feasibility ranged from 77% (social acceptability) to 98% (protocol adherence).
• Identified issues included a low consent rate (6%), high wearable loss (20%), and loose patches (10%).
• Stage 2 showed improved consent (23%) and patch issues (<3%), but increased wearable loss (25%).

Conclusions:

• The Motus system demonstrates promising feasibility for large-scale 24-hour movement behavior data collection.
• Low participation rates and high sensor loss require further optimization.
• Improvements are necessary before widespread adoption, particularly for public health surveillance applications.