THE EFFECT OF WEATHER ON LINEAR AND NONLINEAR MEASURES OF ACTIVITY IN STROKE SURVIVORS
Advisor Information
Brian Knarr
Location
MBSC 201
Presentation Type
Poster
Start Date
6-3-2020 12:30 PM
End Date
6-3-2020 1:45 PM
Abstract
Stroke survivors are less active than healthy age-matched individuals. Activity is tied to many serious health issues, so it is important that we develop a full understanding of how stroke survivors move to target the most effective rehabilitation strategy. Stroke survivors report that unfavorable weather is discouraging to activity because of the increased risk of falling. This study analyzed relationships between weather factors, such as season and precipitation, and nonlinear measures of the activity performed by individuals with stroke. As a part of a larger clinical trial, six days of step data from 142 stroke survivors was analyzed using Jensen-Shannon Divergence (JSD) and Lempel-Ziv Complexity (LZC) to determine how consistent an individual’s step counts were during the day, across days, and how “complex” their activity was by analyzing the number and recurrence of patterned changes between different levels of activity. Mean daily steps, JSD values, and daily LZC values were compared by season. The effect of precipitation was determined for total daily steps and daily LZC values. ANOVA tests showed higher LZC values in spring than winter. Therefore, activity was more complex during spring than during winter when activities may be restricted due to weather. This finding indicates that targeting a rehabilitation plan with a variety of activities, as to increase complexity, may help increase activity levels in stroke survivors more effectively than a goal to increase an overall daily step count, especially during times of unfavorable weather conditions.
THE EFFECT OF WEATHER ON LINEAR AND NONLINEAR MEASURES OF ACTIVITY IN STROKE SURVIVORS
MBSC 201
Stroke survivors are less active than healthy age-matched individuals. Activity is tied to many serious health issues, so it is important that we develop a full understanding of how stroke survivors move to target the most effective rehabilitation strategy. Stroke survivors report that unfavorable weather is discouraging to activity because of the increased risk of falling. This study analyzed relationships between weather factors, such as season and precipitation, and nonlinear measures of the activity performed by individuals with stroke. As a part of a larger clinical trial, six days of step data from 142 stroke survivors was analyzed using Jensen-Shannon Divergence (JSD) and Lempel-Ziv Complexity (LZC) to determine how consistent an individual’s step counts were during the day, across days, and how “complex” their activity was by analyzing the number and recurrence of patterned changes between different levels of activity. Mean daily steps, JSD values, and daily LZC values were compared by season. The effect of precipitation was determined for total daily steps and daily LZC values. ANOVA tests showed higher LZC values in spring than winter. Therefore, activity was more complex during spring than during winter when activities may be restricted due to weather. This finding indicates that targeting a rehabilitation plan with a variety of activities, as to increase complexity, may help increase activity levels in stroke survivors more effectively than a goal to increase an overall daily step count, especially during times of unfavorable weather conditions.