Fitbit activity trackers are to be used to measure exercise levels for a new study which aims to use the data to help calculate a patient’s recovery time from spine surgery.

US researchers from Northwestern University are working with the University of California San Francisco and New York University for the study, which is being funded by the International Spine Study Group.

The scientists use the Fitbits to track physical activity levels for four weeks before a surgery and for six months afterward. By analysing data patterns, they hope to devise a formula which will allow for precise predictions of a patient’s recovery timeline and their return to full fitness.

“An activity monitor allows us to have an objective, numerically exact and continuous measure of activity. This can show exactly how much function a patient has regained and, critically, when and if it occurs during the recovery period,” said Zachary Smith, assistant professor in Neurological Surgery at Northwestern and a principal investigator of the study.

“This may allow us to predict when a patient will be back to 50 per cent activity, 100 per cent activity or even 200 per cent activity in the future.”

The current study focuses on minimally-invasive spine surgeries for degenerative disease and deformity, such as correcting scoliosis, but there are plans to apply this physical activity monitoring approach to all spine operations in the future. The researchers have started enrolling patients and accumulating data for the project, with promising preliminary results.

“We’ve already seen how surgery changes activity in our first patients,” Smith added. “It appears that almost all patients go through a four- to six-week period where their activity is decreased. Just over a month out from many of the surgeries, they get back to their pre-operative level. Then they slowly continue to climb to new levels of activity that they could never have reached before.”

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