Fatigue-Related Changes of Daily Function: Most Promising Measures for the Digital Age

Walter Maetzler; Leonor Correia Guedes; Kirsten Nele Emmert; Jennifer Kudelka; Hanna Luise Hildesheim; Emma Paulides; Hayley Connolly; Kristen Davies; Valentina Dilda; Teemu Ahmaniemi; Luisa Avedano; Raquel Bouça-Machado; Michael Chambers; Meenakshi Chatterjee; Peter Gallagher; Johanna Graeber; Corina Maetzler; Hanna Kaduszkiewicz; Norelee Kennedy; Victoria Macrae; Laura Carrasco Marin; Anusha Moses; Alessandro Padovani; Andrea Pilotto; Natasha Ratcliffe; Ralf Reilmann; Madalena Rosario; Stefan Schreiber; Dina De Sousa; Geert Van Gassen; Lori Ann Warring; Klaus Seppi; C Janneke van der Woude; Joaquim J Ferreira; Wan-Fai Ng; IDEA-FAST project consortium

doi:10.1159/000536568

Fatigue-Related Changes of Daily Function: Most Promising Measures for the Digital Age

Digit Biomark. 2024 Mar 20;8(1):30-39. doi: 10.1159/000536568. eCollection 2024 Jan-Dec.

Authors

Walter Maetzler¹, Leonor Correia Guedes², Kirsten Nele Emmert¹, Jennifer Kudelka¹, Hanna Luise Hildesheim¹, Emma Paulides³, Hayley Connolly⁴, Kristen Davies⁵, Valentina Dilda⁶, Teemu Ahmaniemi⁷, Luisa Avedano⁸, Raquel Bouça-Machado², Michael Chambers⁹, Meenakshi Chatterjee¹⁰, Peter Gallagher¹¹, Johanna Graeber¹², Corina Maetzler¹, Hanna Kaduszkiewicz¹², Norelee Kennedy⁴, Victoria Macrae⁵, Laura Carrasco Marin¹³, Anusha Moses^{4

14}, Alessandro Padovani¹⁵, Andrea Pilotto¹⁵, Natasha Ratcliffe¹⁶, Ralf Reilmann^{17

18

19}, Madalena Rosario², Stefan Schreiber²⁰, Dina De Sousa²¹, Geert Van Gassen²², Lori Ann Warring²³, Klaus Seppi²⁴, C Janneke van der Woude³, Joaquim J Ferreira², Wan-Fai Ng⁵; IDEA-FAST project consortium

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurology, University Medical Centre Schleswig-Holstein, Campus Kiel and Kiel University, Kiel, Germany.
² Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes and Centro de Estudos Egas Moniz, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
³ Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
⁴ School of Allied Health, Faculty of Education and Health Sciences and Health Research Institute, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland.
⁵ Translational and Clinical Research Institute, Newcastle University and NIHR Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
⁶ CHDI Management, CHDI Foundation, Princeton, NJ, USA.
⁷ Teknologian tutkimuskeskus VTT Oy, Espoo, Finland.
⁸ European Federation of Crohn's and Ulcerative Colitis, Brussels, Belgium.
⁹ MC Healthcare Evaluation, London, UK.
¹⁰ Janssen Research and Development, Cambridge, MA, USA.
¹¹ Translational and Clinical Research Institute, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
¹² Institute of General Medicine, University Medical Centre Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany.
¹³ Asociación Parkinson Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
¹⁴ University of Twente, Department of Medical Cell Biophysics, TechMed Centre, Enschede, The Netherlands.
¹⁵ Neurology Unit, Department of Clinical and Experimental Sciences, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy.
¹⁶ Parkinson's UK, London, UK.
¹⁷ George-Huntington-Institute, R&D-Campus/Technology-Park Münster, Münster, Germany.
¹⁸ Institute of Clinical Radiology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany.
¹⁹ Department of Neurodegeneration, Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
²⁰ Department of Internal Medicine I, University Medical Centre Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany.
²¹ European Huntington's Association, Moerbeke, Belgium.
²² Medical Department, Takeda, Brussels, Belgium.
²³ Janssen LLC, GCSO Immunology, Horsham, PA, USA.
²⁴ Department of Neurology, Medical University Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.

Abstract

Background: Fatigue is a prominent symptom in many diseases and is strongly associated with impaired daily function. The measurement of daily function is currently almost always done with questionnaires, which are subjective and imprecise. With the recent advances of digital wearable technologies, novel approaches to evaluate daily function quantitatively and objectively in real-life conditions are increasingly possible. This also creates new possibilities to measure fatigue-related changes of daily function using such technologies.

Summary: This review examines which digitally assessable parameters in immune-mediated inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases may have the greatest potential to reflect fatigue-related changes of daily function.

Key messages: Results of a standardized analysis of the literature reporting about perception-, capacity-, and performance-evaluating assessment tools indicate that changes of the following parameters: physical activity, independence of daily living, social participation, working life, mental status, cognitive and aerobic capacity, and supervised and unsupervised mobility performance have the highest potential to reflect fatigue-related changes of daily function. These parameters thus hold the greatest potential for quantitatively measuring fatigue in representative diseases in real-life conditions, e.g., with digital wearable technologies. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, this is a new approach to analysing evidence for the design of performance-based digital assessment protocols in human research, which may stimulate further systematic research in this area.

Keywords: Activities of daily life; International Classification of Functioning, disability and health; Performance; Wearables.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

This work has been undertaken as part of the IDEA-FAST project which has received funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No. 853981. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA and Parkinson’s UK. This communication reflects the view of the IDEA-FAST Consortium and neither IMI nor the European Union and EFPIA are liable for any use that may be made of the information contained herein.