Free iPhone App Measures Slower Movement to Help
Senior Citizens Keep Up with Daily Exercise
Low-level physical activity like standing up not
measured by most popular devices
April 26, 2010 Many people trying to control
their weight and improve their health use devices to measure their daily
activity, but these common devices may not be able to measure the slower
less vigorous daily movements of senior citizens. Now, however, there is
a free application for the iPhone designed for seniors that even
measures standing up.
The idea took hold when a study published by the
Department Endocrinology, Nutrition and Diabetes of the Mayo Clinic in
Rochester, Minnesota, showed that under a controlled diet, leaner people
tend to spend two and a half more hours per day standing than did
heavier people. The results indicated that leaner people were more
active in their day-to-day activities even when they weren't exercising.
"If that is the case, why don't we encourage people
to get out of their chairs?" asked department member and research
engineer Chinmay Manohar.
Manohar's group set out to design a device to
promote more physical activity. The ideal device would be something that
is affordable and commercially available. The team settled on the iPhone
and the iPod Touch because many people already own these devices and
they come with built in motion sensors.
The research group created a program called the
Walk n'Play that can be downloaded for free through iTunes to distribute
the technology to a wider population. More and more Smart phones are
using motion sensors and making the program compatible between platforms
will not be difficult.
Walk n'Play: Designed for Everybody
The current version is fairly basic, according to
Manohar. The user inputs their height and weight into the program and
throughout the day, their score can be monitored. The program will tell
the user if they are winning or losing against the computer. There is no
pressure and the game does not ask you to do any specific exercise. But
turning physical activity into a game makes people more competitive and
more likely to get active.
Manohar says that most off-the-shelf devices tend
to be unreliable for measuring the lower speeds detected by the Walk
n'Play. This is because most of the devices on the market are used for
measuring exercise like jogging or running, not for the day-to-day
movement for which the Walk n'Play is designed.
The program was tested for the ability to detect
changes in movement as little as half a mile per hour. They tested
positions from 31 volunteers like sitting, standing and lying down and
tested seven speeds on the treadmill to determine how precise the
program was. Using the results of these movement tests, Manohar's group
developed a gold standard for typical movements used in daily
activities.
The iPhone and the iPod Touch use motion sensors
called accelerometers that detect motion. The program is designed to
access the accelerometer in the phone and convert the motion that is
detected into activity units as a way to measure the physical activity.
A Motivational Push
Over 10,000 people have already downloaded the Walk
n'Play, but Manohar knows it will take more than a basic activity
monitor to keep people's interest.
"You have to put an element of fun into the whole
thing to encourage people to be more active," Manohar said, "we put
people into a gaming mind-set and people unknowingly do exercise and
have fun doing it."
The group further modified the program to integrate
basic social networking. Fitness and weight-loss in general is easier to
do with a buddy. The newer features will allow a person to play against
their friends or even compete with people or top performers from other
countries or time zones. Users can even post their performance as their
Twitter status.
According to Manohar, most people know they need
more exercise to maintain a healthy weight, but getting up the
motivation for a workout plan can be daunting. Using programs like the
Walk n'Play can encourage people to make incremental changes in their
daily activities that can add up to better health, like promoting people
to take the stairs more often to get in that extra little bit of
exercise for the day.
Mr. Manohar will be presenting his team's work at
the 2010 Experimental Biology meeting in Anaheim, CA on April 24-28. His
presentation, entitled "Laboratory evaluation of the accuracy of a
triaxial accelerometer embedded into a cell phone platform for measuring
physical activity," is based on research performed with Shelly McCrady
and James Levine of the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN; and Yuichi Fujiki
and Ioannis Pavlidis from the Department of Computer Science at the
University of Houston, Houston, TX.
The American Physiological Society (APS;
www.the-APS.org/press) has been an integral part of the discovery
process of how molecules, cells, tissues and organs function to create
health or disease since it was established in 1887.
April 26, 2010 Many people trying to control
their weight and improve their health use devices to measure their daily
activity, but these common devices may not be able to measure the slower
less vigorous daily movements of senior citizens. Now, however, there is
a free application for the iPhone designed for seniors that even
measures standing up.