Original articleObjectively Quantified Physical Activity in Persons With Multiple Sclerosis
Section snippets
Participants
The study involved a secondary analysis performed on a combined data set of persons with MS and healthy controls from 13 previous investigations of physical activity and symptomatic, social cognitive, or QOL outcomes (the data from each investigation have been previously deidentified before consideration of amalgamation and combined analysis). The investigations involved cross-sectional, longitudinal, and randomized controlled trial designs, and we only included the baseline measure of physical
Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of the samples
The sociodemographic characteristics along with the identified differences between the samples of persons with MS and healthy controls are provided in table 2. The table further contains the clinical characteristics of persons with MS. Importantly, the median PDDS score was 2.0 (range, 0–8). This indicated that the overall sample was characterized by moderate disability (ie, no limitations in walking but significant problems because of MS that limit daily activity in other ways), with a range
Discussion
This study extends previous research on physical activity in persons with MS12, 13, 18 by providing precise and objective estimates of time spent in MVPA and the proportion of persons meeting public health guidelines for physical activity in a large sample. The primary analysis indicated that the sample of persons with MS engaged in approximately 13 minutes less MVPA per day, or approximately 1.5 hours less over the course of a week, than the healthy controls, even when controlling for
Conclusions
Overall, this study provides objectively derived estimates of MVPA in persons with MS and indicates that persons with MS are generally not accruing sufficient amounts of MVPA, as recommended by the public health guidelines for promoting health and preventing secondary conditions and comorbidities. This underscores the timeliness and importance of developing behavior interventions for increasing physical activity in persons with MS: the promotion of physical activity has been identified as
Suppliers
- a.
ActiGraph LLC, 49 East Chase St, Pensacola, FL 32502.
- b.
Microsoft, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-7329.
- c.
SPSS Inc, 233 S Wacker Dr, 11th Fl, Chicago, IL 60606.
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Cited by (0)
Supported in part by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (grant no. RG 3926A2/1) and the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke (grant no. NS054050).
No commercial party having a direct financial interest in the results of the research supporting this article has conferred or will confer a benefit on the authors or on any organization with which the authors are associated.