Authors:
Miriam Cabrita
;
Harm op den Akker
;
Reinoud Achterkamp
;
Hermie Hermens
and
Miriam Vollenbroek-Hutten
Affiliation:
Roessingh Research and Development and University of Twente, Netherlands
Keyword(s):
Accelerometers, Physical Activity, Goal-setting, Personalization, Telemedicine, Body Area Networks.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Application Domains
;
Applications and Uses
;
Biomedical Engineering
;
Health Information Systems
;
Healthcare
;
Home Monitoring and Assisted Living Applications
;
Sensor Networks
;
Simulation and Modeling
;
Well-Being and Well-Working
Abstract:
The ageing population and the increase in sedentary lifestyles of knowledge workers has led to increasing
concerns about the physical activity habits of the European population. Pervasive technologies and theories of
behavioral change are being combined in an effort to promote physical activity. The Activity Coach is an example
of one such system. Whereas the previous version of the Activity Coach set a fixed and permanent daily
goal, in this work we describe the addition of an automatically adaptive goal-setting feature to this existing
system. With the new feature, the daily goals for physical activity are set based on the user’s routine, contributing
to the personalization of the system. A technical evaluation was performed to test the system’s adaptation
to the user’s routine. Additionally, a conversion factor between a unit of energy expenditure and number of
steps was determined. The evaluation indicates that our method of goal-setting provides more challenging
but still attain
able goals when compared to the previous version. Additional evaluations are recommended to
evaluate the user’s perception and effects on physical activity behavior change of this new feature. The results
of this research are implemented in the existing Activity Coach and will be used in future patient evaluations.
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