Researchers Utilizing Fitbit Data To Predict Recovery Times
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
The study monitors physical activity with Fitbit trackers to assess function levels and recovery progress.
A new study by researchers at Northwestern University, the University of California – San Francisco, and New York University – funded by the International Spine Study Group – is utilizing Fitbit tracking information to try to predict recovery times in spinal surgeries. The study is currently targeting minimally invasive spinal surgeries for degenerative disease and deformity, such as correcting scoliosis, but there is potential to expand the scope of the study in the future.
Zachary Smith, MD., assistant professor of Neurological Surgery at Northwestern, and a principal investigator in the study explained, “An activity monitor allows us to have an objective, numerically exact and continuous measure of activity. This can show exactly how much function a patient has regained and, critically, when and if it occurs during the recovery period. This may allow us to predict when a patient will be back to 50 percent activity, 100 percent activity or even 200 percent activity in the future.”
Surgeons already know that surgery has a dramatic impact on activity. The study has shown that “almost all patients go through a four-to-six-week period where their activity is decreased. Just over a month out from many of the surgeries, they get back to their pre-operational level. Then they slowly continue to climb to new levels of activity that they could never have reached before.”
The hope is to integrate the technology into the practice of spinal surgery, making it “a universal and accepted means of evaluating patients and evaluating our outcomes,” Smith said. “Most importantly, we hope to make patients more involved in their own self-evaluation, recovery, and spinal health Working hand-in-hand with our patients to improve our outcomes will only make us more effective.”
The Fitbit technology was also used by the Mayo Clinic in a 2013 study of cardiac surgery patients. Using an iPad app, cardiac surgery patients at the Mayo clinic were able to participate in the pre- and post-surgery process, investing them in their recovery. And the Fitbit was also used in an earlier study, which demonstrated that it could be a valuable tool in reducing recovery times for elderly patients after major surgeries.
In that earlier study, Med City News noted while the results were encouraging, “One drawback was interoperability. The Fitbit data and associated dashboards were not integrated with the hospitals EHR system. To get around this, each surgical service had an iPad and a link to the dashboard. Patient data was password protected and open only to doctors on the patient’s surgical team.”