JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Human activity recognition, or HAR, is a burgeoning field that uses sensor technology to detect and categorize human movement. Detecting when an activity is happening can be used to break down signals into information about a person’s physical health. Used in combination with HAR are mobility tasks like sit-to-stands (STS), timed-up-and-go (TUG), and others. Together HAR and mobility tasks are an effective method to measure health, especially in older adults. Consumer wearables like FitBits and Apple watches are currently being used to measure many of these mobility tasks. The wide adoption of these devices is a result of their ease of use and simplicity. Despite this, most wearables go unused shortly after purchase. A potential solution is the use of consumer devices which are already adopted like headphones or hearing aids. These devices can perform the same measurements as the wearables but have the advantage of being used for other reasons than health monitoring. On top of easier adoption, head-worn sensors tend to have less noise in the data due to filtering by the body. Despite this, there is little research on using these devices to perform the tasks wearables currently perform.

Objective:

We aim to understand how head-worn devices have been used to monitor mobility tasks.

Methods:

This scoping review will be guided by the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) checklist. There is no time limit to when the papers must have been published. The databases included in the search are PubMed, Engineering Village, SCOPUS, and Web of Science. Using preestablished inclusion and exclusion criteria, two reviewers will screen each paper. We will follow the three stages of the screening process: abstract and title screening, full text screening, and full text data extraction.

Results:

Head-mounted devices have become part of everyday life and many already contain accelerometers. This scoping review will examine how accelerometers have already been used in research to measure mobility tasks, and to answer how consumer devices can be adapted to improve the lives of regular people.

Conclusions:

Head-mounted devices have become items that are used daily, many already containing accelerometers. This scoping review will answer how accelerometers have already been used in research, and how consumer devices can be adapted to improve the lives of regular people.