Physical Activity and Health
Volledige vakbeschrijving
This course will address two major themes that are highly related to each other. The first theme covers the beneficial effects of physical activity on health. Several keynote lectures (1 h) are delivered covering the different health aspects of physical activity including metabolic, cardiovascular and cognitive health and sit-less for health. The second major theme of the course is how physical activity can be accurately measured in daily life. For that, wearable sensors will be used and students will learn about different sensors that are available, how these sensors function and how data from these sensors can be analysed. For this, students will get to design their own research project where they can answer their research question using a tri-axial accelerometer (the MOX).
The course keynote lectures will mainly cover theoretical bases about how physical activity benefits health and how physical activity can be measured. The tutorial/project group meetings will be used to design the research projects, perform measurements, analyse the data and present the project results.
Doelstellingen van dit vak
Knowledge and understanding
At the end of this course, students have gained knowledge and understanding of the following topics:
- Knowledge about design of experiments/testing (research methods and design)
- To test reproducibility and validity of physical activity data
- To test sensitivity and specificity of physical activity classification
- Oral presentation of obtained research data
- Writing a scientific report
Learning skills
- Choosing the appropriate technique to quantify relevant aspects of physical activity
- The methodological quality of studies that use motion sensors
- Analysing and interpreting results from a physical activity experiment
- Collaborating effectively with fellow students and experts
Communication
- Formulate a relevant research question related to physical activity and design an appropriate research protocol to answer this question
- Gathering and post-processing of physical activity data
Making judgements
- Metabolic, cardiovascular and cognitive health effects of different aspects of physical activity
- Basic principles of accelerometry-based motion analysis and activity monitoring
- Underlying principles of signal analysis and basic signal processing methods (filtering, differentiation and integration)
- Experimental design and analysis aspects of research related to physical activity monitoring
Aanbevolen literatuur
- J.M.N. Essers