• T Bisgaard, M Kjaersgaard, A Bernhard, H Kehlet, and J Rosenberg.
• Department of Surgical Gastroenterology 235, Hvidovre Hospital, DK-2650 Hvidovre, Denmark. bisgaard@dadlnet.dk
• J Clin Monit Comput. 1999 Jan 1; 15 (1): 1-8.

ObjectiveAssessment of early postoperative activity is important in the documentation of improvements of peri-operative care. This study was designed to validate computerized activity-based monitoring of physical activity and sleep (actigraphy) in patients after abdominal surgery.MethodsThe study included twelve hospitalized patients after major abdominal surgery studied on day 2 to 4 after operation and twelve unhospitalized healthy volunteers. Measurements were performed for 24 consecutive hours. The actigraphy measurements were compared with self-reported activity- and sleep registration. The actigraphy output was obtained by the zero-crossing mode (ZCM) and time-above-threshold mode (TATM).ResultsThe overall results showed comparable mean agreement between actigraphy and self-reported activity registrations for patients of 80% (SD 12%) and volunteers of 84% (SD 6%) (p = 0.15). In both study groups, all correlation coefficients between actigraphy measurements and self-reported activity data were statistically significant (r, values for patients 0.4 to 0.8 and volunteers 0.6 to 0.9). A higher mean agreement between automated actigraphy sleep detection and self-reported sleep registration were found in the volunteers (85%, SD 15%) compared with the patients (77%, SD 11%) (p < 0.05). The mean activity value awake was higher in the volunteers than in the patients (p < 0.05).ConclusionComputerized activity monitoring by actigraphy is a reliable and easy method for monitoring physical activity and sleep-wake cycles after major abdominal surgery.

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