ArticleThe journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences2019
Fractal Complexity of Daily Physical Activity Patterns Differs With Age Over the Life Span and Is Associated With Mortality in Older Adults.
Article in The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed.
- From wrist data to lifespan: elucidating inflammation-driven biological aging via activity rhythms captured by wearable devices.npj aging · 2026Article
- Using Indoor Movement Complexity in Smart Homes to Detect Frailty in Older Adults: Multiple-Methods Case Series Study.JMIR aging · 2026Article
- Physical activity and cardiometabolic health across an extreme lifestyle gradient.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2026Article
- Variability in Exercise is Linked to Improved Age-related Dysfunctions, Suggesting a Potential Role for the Constrained-Disorder Principle-based Second-Generation Artificial Intelligence System.Current aging science · 2026Article
- Beyond FITT: addressing density in understanding the dose-response relationships of physical activity with health-an example based on brain health.European journal of applied physiology · 2025Review
- Angular distribution of fractal temporal correlations supports adaptive responses to wobble board instability.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- Detecting the fractal physical activity pattern in aged adults with cerebral small vessel disease.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2025Article
- Measures of fragmentation of rest activity patterns: mathematical properties and interpretability based on accelerometer real life data.BMC medical research methodology · 2024Article
- Time-dependent complexity characterisation of activity patterns in patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.BioPsychoSocial medicine · 2024Article
- General spectral characteristics of human activity and its inherent scale-free fluctuations.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Frailty detection in older adults via fractal analysis of acceleration signals from wrist-worn sensors.Health information science and systems · 2023Article
- Fractal complexity of daily physical activity and cognitive function in a midlife cohort.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Automated analysis of activity, sleep, and rhythmic behaviour in various animal species with the Rtivity software.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Improving the effectiveness of anti-aging modalities by using the constrained disorder principle-based management algorithms.Frontiers in aging · 2022Review
- Complexity of Body Movements during Sleep in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Adaptive Capacities and Complexity of Heart Rate Variability in Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Throughout Pulmonary Rehabilitation.Frontiers in physiology · 2021Article
- Quantifying the Varying Predictive Value of Physical Activity Measures Obtained from Wearable Accelerometers on All-Cause Mortality over Short to Medium Time Horizons in NHANES 2003-2006.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
- The Predictive Performance of Objective Measures of Physical Activity Derived From Accelerometry Data for 5-Year All-Cause Mortality in Older Adults: National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey 2003-2006.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2020Article
- Assessment of Fractal Characteristics of Locomotor Activity of Geriatric In-Patients With Alzheimer's Dementia.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAccelerometers are included in a wide range of devices that monitor and track physical activity for health-related applications. However, the clinical utility of the information embedded in their rich time-series data has been greatly understudied and has yet to be fully realized. Here, we examine the potential for fractal complexity of actigraphy data to serve as a clinical biomarker for mortality risk.
methodsWe use detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) to analyze actigraphy data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES; n = 11,694). The DFA method measures fractal complexity (signal self-affinity across time-scales) as correlations between the amplitude of signal fluctuations in time-series data across a range of time-scales. The slope, α, relating the fluctuation amplitudes to the time-scales over which they were measured describes the complexity of the signal.
resultsFractal complexity of physical activity (α) decreased significantly with age (p = 1.29E-6) and was lower in women compared with men (p = 1.79E-4). Higher levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity in older adults and in women were associated with greater fractal complexity. In adults aged 50-79 years, lower fractal complexity of activity (α) was associated with greater mortality (hazard ratio = 0.64; 95% confidence interval = 0.49-0.82) after adjusting for age, exercise engagement, chronic diseases, and other covariates associated with mortality.
conclusionsWearable accelerometers can provide a noninvasive biomarker of physiological aging and mortality risk after adjusting for other factors strongly associated with mortality. Thus, this fractal analysis of accelerometer signals provides a novel clinical application for wearable accelerometers, advancing efforts for remote monitoring of physiological health by clinicians.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.