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Fitness trackers can be useful for assessing the quality of life and daily functioning of cancer patients during treatment, the trackers are wearable activity monitors, worn on the wrist that log a wearer’s step counts, stairs climbed, calories, heart rate and sleep. This makes it easy to treat patients with advanced cancer. The physical state of cancer patient is accessible during therapy.
Patient’s health statuses change from day to day, the wearable make it easy to monitor the changes. The study focused on patients undergoing treatment for advanced cancer at Cedars-Sinai. They wore wrist-mounted fitness trackers throughout the study. Sets of activity data were collected for three consecutive visits during treatment. After the final clinical visit, patients were followed for six months to gather additional clinical and survival outcomes.
Researchers compared data from the trackers with patients’ assessments of their own symptoms like pain, fatigue and sleep quality, as collected from a National Institutes of Health questionnaire. These data sets also were compared with two common scales used to gauge physical status and overall health: the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Status (ECOG) and Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) scales.
The results showed that objective data collected from wearable activity monitors can supplement and enhance the latest health status and physical function. In the study, increased daily step and stair activity correlated with more positive ratings of a patient’s condition on the provider surveys and lower rates of adverse events and hospitalization.
The information can indicate the effects of a particular treatment on a patient’s daily functioning, continuous activity monitoring may predict and monitor treatment complications and allow for more timely and appropriate interventions.
Wearable activity monitors could lead to development of individualized treatment and exercise plans that may result in increased treatment tolerability and improved survival outcomes for patients. Digital wearable and broadband telecommunication can allow remote monitoring of cancer patients and anticipate the need for intervention before symptoms occur.