Within LIME the MISS Activity has been developed. It is a follow-up development of the existing MOX Activity Monitor of Instrument Development, Engineering and Evaluation (IDEE).

The product

The MISS Activity is a user-friendly activity meter for people aged 65 and over. The MISS Activity is unique because:

  • It has a specially adapted algorithm for the slow walking pattern of the target group.
  • The user interface has been developed with and for the target group.
  • The MISS Activity can be carried in a pocket. The activity meter measures both the number of steps and active minutes validly.
  • The data is displayed in a very simple way, in the corresponding app. In the app the user can see the data of that day and the distribution of the number of steps and active minutes throughout the day. In the same app, the participant can specify a personal step target and an active minute target.
The question and approach

The goal was to adapt the existing MOX activities meter. This was necessary because our own preliminary research showed that the current activity meters are not user-friendly for older people and that they are not able to validly measure during daily activities. Think of of activities such as vacuum cleaning (see article in Smarthealth.nl).

From LIME, together with IDEE, researchers, students and the elderly, requirements have been defined with which the MISS Activity must comply.

The development consisted of two parts:

  1. Adapting and validating the MOX algorithm for the elderly during daily activities.
  2. Developing a user-friendly user interface.

The algorithm has been developed and tested with ten healthy adults and 40 healthy elderly people. The user interface was developed together with 25 elderly people in an iterative process.

The developed MISS Activity was subsequently tested in a field study for manageability and applicability in 30 elderly people living at home and at Het Rughuis in patients with chronic pain.

More than 100 students from a variety of disciplines, such as ICT, Communication and Media Design (CMD), Physiotherapy and International Business,were involved in the modification of the MOX.

Reactions of users

The tests have been praised by both the user and the therapist.

“It’s easy to read and it’s easy to set up and there’s always an escape if you need one. If you can’t do it yourself, you can still call the helpline or someone around you who can help you out, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“The advantage for me as a therapist is that we also have little insight into the movement pattern of clients and the MISS Activity gives us much more insight. People themselves don’t always know how much they are moving and by seeing it explicitly on such an app, it is much more insightful for both the client and for us.”

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lvSRaFhypk[/embedyt]

Reference