Original articlePhysical Activity Measurement Using MTI (Actigraph) Among Children With Cerebral Palsy
Section snippets
Participants
A convenience sample of 31 children with CP (17 girls, 14 boys) between ages of 6 and 14 years (mean ± SD, 9.71±2.52y) participated in the study. The sample size was based on a balance between the difficulty in procuring large samples of children with CP and previous suggestions that studies need at least 15 participants for each predictor variable in order to develop reliable regression equations.32 The participants were recruited from 2 special schools for children with physical disabilities.
Structured Activity
The structured activity session was designed to represent a stepwise increase in intensity of physical activities. Table 2 shows the means and SDs for the MTI, HRM, and SOFIT outputs for the 6 protocol activities, with predictably greater activity outputs found in the higher levels of the structured activity protocol.
Results of the Pearson correlations and linear regression analyses indicated that all 3 activity measures increased across the higher levels of the structured activity protocol in
Discussion
The protocol in the structured activity sessions engaged the participants in a series of activities that were designed to have a stepwise increase in intensity. Observed PA levels as measured by SOFIT demonstrated a very strong, significant, and positive linear association with the activity protocol, confirming the evidence that direct observation is an appropriate criterion measure for PA measurement validity studies,19, 21, 23, 24 particularly among children.37 In an earlier calibration study
Conclusions
The present study concludes that the MTI appears to be a valid measure of activity volume among children with CP in both structured and free play activities. The findings support the potential use of MTI in field-based studies that aim to monitor the habitual PA of children with CP, including studies examining the effects of interventions. A minimum of 7 days of monitoring is required to assess children's habitual PA reliably,38 including weekdays and weekends.39 Similar considerations may have
Acknowledgments
We thank Tina Chan, PT and Kathlynne Eguia, PT for facilitating the data collection. Special thanks to the participating children with CP and to their parents as well.
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