Use of wearable sensors to assess compliance of asthmatic children in response to lockdown measures for the COVID-19 epidemic

Abstract

Between March and April 2020, Cyprus and Greece health authorities enforced three escalated levels of public health interventions to control the COVID-19 pandemic. We quantified compliance of 108 asthmatic schoolchildren (53 from Cyprus, 55 from Greece, mean age 9.7 years) from both countries to intervention levels, using wearable sensors to continuously track personal location and physical activity. Changes in ‘fraction time spent at home’ and ‘total steps/day’ were assessed with a mixed-effects model adjusting for confounders. We observed significant mean increases in ‘fraction time spent at home’ in Cyprus and Greece, during each intervention level by 41.4% and 14.3% (level 1), 48.7% and 23.1% (level 2) and 45.2% and 32.0% (level 3), respectively. Physical activity in Cyprus and Greece demonstrated significant mean decreases by − 2,531 and − 1,191 (level 1), − 3,638 and − 2,337 (level 2) and − 3,644 and − 1,961 (level 3) total steps/day, respectively. Significant independent effects of weekends and age were found on ‘fraction time spent at home’. Similarly, weekends, age, humidity and gender had an independent effect on physical activity. We suggest that wearable technology provides objective, continuous, real-time location and activity data making possible to inform in a timely manner public health officials on compliance to various tiers of public health interventions during a pandemic.

“Wearables on vogue”: a scoping review on wearables on physical activity and sedentary behavior during COVID-19 pandemic

“…Heterogeneity in the study types was observed as follows: cross-sectional (n = 9; 53%), longitudinal (n = 4; 24%), retrospective (n = 1; 6%), narrative review (n = 1; 6%) and pilot non-randomized studies (n = 2; 12%). Similar heterogeneity was found in participants too in the included studies: pregnant women [27], elderly [24,26], office workers [21], diabetes [18] and children [25]. All the studies were from high-income countries.…”

“…Seven studies administered smartphone-based physical activity measurement through inbuilt accelerometers from which the captured data were transferred to the cloud server and visualized in smartphone applications [16-19, 21, 24, 31]. Majority of studies (n = 9; 53%) employed wrist bands and wristwatches of multiple technology firms (Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi) and wearable research-based accelerometers [20,23,25,26,[28][29][30]32]. A few studies (n = 4; 24%) reported the psychometrics of the wearables, and lowto-moderate validity was found [21,22,27].…”

New Directions in Sensor Research: A Bibliometric Analysis for Detecting Emerging Research Fields and New Technological Trajectories

“…Dynamics of trends in wearable sensor using trend analysisThis study also shows that studies on wearable sensor are growing significantly in detection and monitoring technologies. Since wearable sensors can be assumed as biosensors connected to the body, assessing different biological elements, the health care system is one of the essential applications (Chen et al, 2021; Feng et al, 2021;Kouis et al, 2021). In fact, the embedding of wearable sensor systems in health treatment procedures reduces the cost of hospitals' daily expenditures, including patient monitoring and vital sign measurement.…”

Scientific Developments and New Technological Trajectories in Sensor Research

“…Results also show that wearable sensors can be biosensors connected to the body for assessing different biological elements; therefore, the healthcare system is one of the essential applications [ 52 , 90 , 91 ]. In fact, the embedding of wearable sensor systems in health treatment procedures reduces the cost of hospitals’ daily expenditures.…”