The Use of an Activity Tracker to Objectively Measure Inpatient Activity after Bariatric Surgery

Abstract Background Early postoperative ambulation reduces length of stay and prevents postoperative complications after bariatric surgery. Rarely is postoperative inpatient activity objectively measured despite readily-available commercial activity trackers. Objectives Evaluate the impact of using activity trackers to record number of inpatient steps taken after bariatric surgery and assess how patient characteristics may impact the amount of steps recorded. Settings University Hospital, United States Methods Using an activity tracker, the number of steps taken during the postoperative hospital stay was recorded for 235 patients undergoing either laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass or laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy. Subjects were randomly assigned to either being informed about the devices’ ability to record the number of steps taken or blinded to the purpose of the devices. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize study sample, an independent sample t-test was used to compare number of steps recorded between groups, and a multivariate regression model was used to examine the effect of age, sex, preoperative body mass index (BMI), types of surgery, and length of stay on number of steps recorded. Results 125 patients (52.8%) were randomized to the blinded group while 111 (47.2%) were informed that the device would record the number of steps taken. There were no differences in the number of steps recorded between the two groups. Subjects with prolonged length of stay recorded lower numbers of steps taken on postoperative day zero. Increasing age was seen to reduce the number of steps recorded on postoperative day number one. There were no significant differences in number of steps recorded based on sex, preoperative BMI, or surgery type. Conclusion This study demonstrates that knowledge of an activity tracker being used did not impact the patient’s activity level as measured by steps recorded. Increasing age correlated to reduced number of steps recorded on postoperative day one after bariatric surgery.