Physical Activity Measurement in Children Accepting Table Tennis Training

Physical activity, PA, is very important in childhood. And the accelerometers have been recognized as the golden standard for measuring PA in children. Wrist-worn and hip-worn actigraphic Accelerometer-based measures to access PA in children undergoing table tennis training.

A cost-effective and accurate with high compliance. First, the participants need to wear the actigraphic device all day long. Second, it is necessary that the parents or caregivers acknowledge their children's daily schedule information.

After excluding participants who were diagnosed to have any neuro-development disorder, download and run the software for the device. Enter the duration for collecting data by clicking the select start time and entering the date and time. Click the button, Enter Subject Info, to enter the demographic information including name, gender, height, weight, date of birth, and ethnicity.

Click Side and select Right. If the participants are left-handed, select the opposite side. Click Limb and select Waist.

Click Dominance and select Dominant. Initialize the data collection by clicking Initialize 1 Device. Ensure that the battery is charged to more than 80%Otherwise the initialization will fail.

Then initialize to record raw accelerations at a frequency of 30 hertz. Instruct the participants to wear the accelerometer on the right hip with an elastic waistband. Ensure that the accelerometer is positioned on the right mid axilla line at the level of the iliac crest.

Set the same start, date and time to ensure that the data from both devices is collected at the same time. Enter the demographic information with the modifications in parameters like:Limb, Side and Dominance. And for the left-handed participants, select the opposite side.

Instruct the participants to wear the accelerometer on the wrist of the non-dominant hand on a watch belt and remind the participants to wear the devices all day long;except while bathing, swimming and showering. For the raw data collected, get the data confirmed by a physician, institutional researcher, or professional coach according to the VM chart. And count and delete any unexplained extreme data.

Ask the participants to wear the device all day long and ask the trainers to maintain a diary of the table tennis training schedule. Ask the parents to maintain a diary of leisure time at home and instruct the parents to collect the data of sleep, the time to bed, and the time of waking up in the diary. Take off the device from the right hip and connect it to a laptop or personal computer with a USB cable.

Run the software of the device. Download the accelerometer data of the participant by clicking download and analyze the raw accelerometer data in 60 second epochs. Take off the device from the non-dominant hand connected to a laptop with a USB cable and download the data as described earlier.

The accelerometer's raw acceleration outcome variables are based on vector magnitude counts. Confirm the accelerometer data of leisure time at home, according to the diary of training, leisure time and sleep. Open the scoring page of the software and on the left side of the page, select Algorithms, followed by Cut Points and MVPA.

And at last, click Puyau Children 2002. Then click Calculate. Followed by Export.

The scoring output will be displayed automatically, including SBs, LPAS, MPAs and MVPAs. Obtain everyday leisure time, physical activity by adding diary timing and defining leisure time and the mean vector magnitude counts. Use students'T-test to measure group differences with a P-value less than 0.05 and use a commercially-available statistical software package to conduct all statistics.

The demographic data showed that participants from the sports group did not exhibit any significantly different parameters in terms of sedentary behaviors. In contrast, children in the sports group exhibited a significantly higher VPA and MVPA than those in the control group. Bland-Altman plots suggested that the agreement between hip-worn and wrist-worn accelerometer data was acceptable for MPA, VPA and MVPA.

For the raw data collected, a confirmation is needed by a physician or professional coach;according to the vector magnitude chart, count and delete any unexplained and strange data. Together with subjective questionnaires, such as class behavior in school-aged children questionnaire. The method can demonstrate as a PA of children in a highly effective manner.

Preliminary reports suggest that actigraphic devices can also measure sleep quality, circadian rhythm, and a rest activity rhythm in clinical practice;which is a reflection for children with a physical and a mental disorders.