Efficacy and educational role of a daily employment of the accelerometer to improve the life style in overweight-hypertensive population

Laura Stefani, Antonio Maone, Gabriele Mascherini, Irene Scacciati, Ilaria Corsani, Alessandro Gilardetti, Giulio Ciullini, Giorgio Galanti

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Sports Medicine Center ,University of Florence.

DOI: 10.4236/health.2011.33026                

Abstract

The daily evaluation of the life style is funda- mental for the “exercise as prescription” to re- duce the cardiovascular risks factors. The reg- istration by an accelerometer can identify active from inactive subjects. The aim of the present study is to verify, in a small cohort of subjects at high risk level (obese–hypertensive), the health outcomes. A group of 22 subjects were evalu- ated by the questionnaire and also by an accel- erometer positioned on belt for 5 days to estab- lish the daily Physical Activity Level (PAL).The anthropometrics parameters, Body Mass Index (BMI), Waist Circumference, Hip Circumference, Fat Mass, Free Fat Mass, Total Body–Intracellular and Extracellular Water and Phase Angle (PA) were measured at the beginning and after 3 months of regular exercise. The amount of the exercise prescribed for three months and at least 3 times in a weak, was determined by the Cardiopulmonary test at the 60% of the VO2. Sta-tistical analysis included T-Student test for paired data with a significance at P < 0.05value. Respect of the questionnaire the accelerometer report showed a predominantly inactive life style (PAL = 1.49 ± 0.13). After three months the BMI was significantly reduced in all (p < 0.05) and in addi-tion a trend toward a reduction was also observed for Fatty Mass and for the body composition parameters. The employment of the accelerometer is therefore associated to an improvement of the parameters strongly related with the cardiovascular risk. The results obtained are suggestive for an educational role of this tool in subjects at high risk level.

Keywords

Accelerometer; Life Style; Spontaneous Physical Activity; Body Composition And Phisycal Activity; Exercise As Prescription

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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