IMPACT OF ACTIVITY MONITORS ON QUANTIFICATION OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY - A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW & META-ANALYSIS

Abstract: The aim of analysis was to determine the impact of different activity monitors for quantifying Physical Activity (PA) among the sedentary population for accurate measurement of Energy Expenditure (EE), Metabolic Equivalent (MET), 6 Minute Walk Test (6MWT) and Temporospatial parameters (TSPs) of Gait. The systemic review was performed in MEDLINE, PEDro, AMED, CINAHL, Scopus, Cochrane Central Trials of Register, PsychINFO, Embase databases. Nine qualitative and seven quantitative studies investigating regarding accelerometers with sedentary lifestyle population were selected with TSPs, EE, MET, 6MWT as outcome measures. Quality was assessed using Cochrane Collaboration Tool for assessing the risk of bias. Accelerometers were categorized into four groups; ActiGraph, activPAL mixed accelerometers and new generation accelerometers. Out of 105 studies, only 16 studies (2542 participants) met the inclusion criteria. The result obtained from the quantitative analysis shows that activPAL had more validity than any of the other accelerometers for the quantification of Physical Activity in free-living environment for sedentary behavior with pooled effect of 0.96 under random effect model followed by new generation accelerometers 0.771, mixed accelerometers 0.71 and ActiGraph older generation 0.682.Evidence presented in the paper reveals that a paradigm shift has been seen from subjective measurement approach to objective measurement due to the availability of several types of accelerometers. ActivPAL has found to be effective in the quantification of PA during lifestyle behaviors. Keywords: physical activity; sedentary lifestyle; activPAL; ActiGraph; research-grade activity monitor