Presentation Abstract

Objective Measurement of Physical Activity in Wheelchair Users: Current Issues and Future Directions

With the exponential growth of wearable devices in recent years, these devices are increasingly used to help people track free-living physical activity for self-management as well as support a wide variety of research. Wearable devices can provide objective measures of the intensity, frequency, volume, and sequence of an individual’s daily movement behaviors, while at the same time providing temporal information about these behaviors for pattern analysis. Yet the adoption of wearable devices in wheelchair user population and related research has been limited, primarily due to the fact that most of these devices are calibrated to measure ambulatory movements, leading to limited validity in and relevance to wheelchair users who use upper extremities for mobility. Also, unlike walking, more movements for wheelchair propulsion are not necessarily better, as overuse and inappropriate forms has been linked to upper extremity pain and injury in this population. In addition, there are other challenges such as the diverse disabling conditions in wheelchair users and the biomechanical aspects of a wheelchair on physical exertion. This presentation will discuss the validity of wearable devices in measuring physical activity in wheelchair users and the important methodological issues related to the use of wearable devices in this population and suggest some future directions.

About Dr. Ding

Dan Ding is an Associate Professor at the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, and a VA Research Biomedical Engineer at the Human Engineering Research Laboratories (HERL) at the VA Rehabilitation Research and Development (RR&D) Center on Wheelchair and Assistive Robotics Engineering. She also holds secondary appointments in the Department of Bioengineering and McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Dr. Ding received her Ph.D. degree in mechanical and automation engineering from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2001 and received her postdoctoral training in rehabilitation engineering from 2002–2004 at the University of Pittsburgh. She was the recipient of the NIDILRR Switzer Fellowship and the PVA Research Fellowship. She has authored or co-authored over 180 peer-reviewed journal publications, proceedings, and book chapters. One of her research interests is to use wearable devices to monitor and assess physical activity, limb movements, and behavior of wheelchair users. She works on projects that examine and improve the validity of wearable devices for wheelchair users and also explore how sensor data acquired throughout everyday life assist with clinical decisions and support user self-management, ultimately improving health and wellness of this population. Her work in this area is supported by the U.S. VA, NIDILRR, and the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation.

Dr. Ding disclosed the following conflicts of interest for this workshop: She is a U.S. VA employee and tenured Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh.