Many liver transplant candidates have deficits in physical activity that are missed by clinicians
A new study found that patients waiting for a liver transplant tend to be highly sedentary. Also, patients' self-assessments of their physical activity, and even their doctors' assessments, do not reliably indicate patients' actual physical performance.
Among 53 patients, the average percentages of waking hours spent in sedentary, light, and moderate-to-vigorous activity were 75.9 percent, 18.8 percent, and 4.8 percent, respectively. There was a significantly higher percentage of sedentary behavior in patients who died while waiting for a transplant compared with those who did not.
"Patients' deficits in physical activity were often missed using standardized subjective clinical assessments," said Dr. Michael Dunn, lead author or the Liver Transplantation article.
More information: Michael A. Dunn et al, The gap between clinically assessed physical performance and objective physical activity in liver transplant candidates, Liver Transplantation (2016). DOI: 10.1002/lt.24506
