Register for email alerts and news feeds:
This journal | BMJ Group
rss
The most recent version of this article was published on 1 January 2009

Br J Sports Med. Published Online First: 21 August 2008. doi:10.1136/bjsm.2008.052449
Copyright © 2008 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd & British Association of Sport and Exercise Medicine.

Paper

How Do I Measure Physical Activity in My Patients? Questionnaires & Objective Methods

Barbara Ainsworth 1*

1 Arizona State University, United States

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: barbara.ainsworth{at}asu.edu.

Accepted 1 August 2008


Abstract

How do health care providers know if their patients are getting enough physical activity to promote good health and to reduce their risks for chronic diseases and injury? The first step is to identify the patient's current level of physical activity using questionnaires and/or motion sensors. Questionnaires assess activity levels by having patients answer a set of questions about the types and amounts of activity performed at some time in the past. Motion sensors assess physical activity by patients wearing a small monitoring device that records their body movement as it occurs. If a provider is interested in determining a patient's caloric energy expenditure, he/she can apply statistical regression models to the questionnaire and motion sensor data to estimate kilocalories. If more precise measures of energy expenditure are desired, a provider can use the isotopic doubly-labeled water methods to estimate kilocalories, however this method is costly and is impractical in non-research clinical settings.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Pate, R R, O'Neill, J R (2009). After-school interventions to increase physical activity among youth. Br. J. Sports. Med. 43: 14-18 [Abstract] [Full Text]  

This Article

Services
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Bookmark with

Register for free content

The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.

Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.

 

The journal is co-owned by and the official journal of BASEM

Official journal of ECOSEP

Available online to all members of ACSP, AMSSM and SMNZ