PENSACOLA, FL, March 1, 2023 – ActiGraph, a pioneer and leading provider of digital health technology (DHT) solutions for clinical trials and academic research, launched the Digital Endpoint Accelerator Research “DEAR” Grant to validate fit-for-purpose uses of DHTs in clinical populations. After receiving an overwhelming number of impressive applications and completing a rigorous selection process, five DEAR Grant recipients have been selected.
Each selected research project will be granted financial support along with wearable DHT devices and software to conduct the research. ActiGraph’s team will also support the study teams with multidisciplinary expertise across engineering, data science, and clinical science.
Physical Activity in Cardiology – Nicole Freene (PhD, FHEA, GCTE)
Dr. Nicole Freene is an Associate Professor in Physiotherapy at the University of Canberra. With the DEAR Grant, Dr. Freene and her research team will identify heart disease-specific accelerometer cut-points that will allow the disease-specific relationship between physical activity and health outcomes to be accurately established. Read more details about the project in this blog post.
Assessing Fall-Risk in Older Adults – John Buckley
John Buckley is a Reader in Movement Biomechanics in the Department of Biomedical and Electronics Engineering at the University of Bradford, teaching courses in clinical movement analysis, biomechanics, and rehabilitation engineering. With the DEAR Grant, Buckley and his research team will determine how actigraphy could be used to measure the performance and variability of ankle strength, function, and endurance assessments, which help inform fall risk. Read more details about the project in this blog post.
Functional Mobility Assessment in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis – Cory Holdom
Cory Holdom is a PhD student at the University of Queensland, working in motor neuron disease (MND) research. Actigraphy offers a promising opportunity for reliable, meaningful measures of MND progression. With the DEAR Grant, Holdom and his research team will validate actigraphy-derived measures of gait that can be applied in future MND clinical trials. Read more details about the project in this blog post.
Reproducibility and Validity of Sensor-Derived Gait Measures in Multiple Sclerosis – Alon Kalron, PhD, PT
Dr. Alon Kalron is a Senior Lecturer and Chair of the Department of Physical Therapy at Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University. With the DEAR Grant, Dr. Kalron and his research team will validate spatio-temporal gait output data in people with multiple sclerosis (MS). They will also examine the relationship between ActiGraph spatio-temporal gait data with level of disability, fear and history of falling, and perceived impact of MS on mobility. Read more details about the project in this blog post.
Sleep in Down Syndrome – Sarika Peters, PhD
Dr. Sarika Peters is a psychologist and co-director of the Behavioral Phenotyping Core of the Vanderbilt Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center. With the DEAR Grant, Dr. Peters and her research team will develop a specific algorithm for measuring sleep-based outcomes in Down syndrome (DS) and test its analytical and clinical validity against commonly used outcome measures in DS, such as polysomnography. Read more details about the project in this blog post.
“Validation evidence of wearable measures in clinical populations is not always available and represents a gap for fit-for-purpose use of wearables in clinical research,” said Christine Guo, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at ActiGraph. “We are thrilled with the overwhelming response to our grant call and excited to partner with our research community to bridge this gap! Evidence generated from these studies will accelerate the adoption of wearable data as patient-centered outcomes on physical functioning, functional mobility. and sleep in clinical trials and care.
ActiGraph will collaborate with these clinical researchers throughout their projects, working together on the quest to accelerate the use of digital clinical measures. By closing evidence gaps with objective, real-world health outcomes, DHTs allow for more efficient, patient-centric development of life changing treatments and therapies.
About ActiGraph
ActiGraph is pioneering the digital transformation of clinical research. We provide end-to-end digital health technology (DHT) solutions by integrating and operationalizing the best hardware, software, and algorithms to generate reliable evidence and get the right treatments to the right patients, faster. ActiGraph’s medical-grade wearable technology platform has been used to capture real-world, continuous digital measures of activity, sleep, and mobility for nearly 250 industry-sponsored clinical trials and thousands of academic research studies. Appearing in over 22,000 published scientific papers to date, ActiGraph is the most experienced and trusted wearable technology partner in the industry.
