Tracking Physical Activity for Chronic Pain Management Among Older Adults in Detroit

Wearable, commercially-available physical activity monitors are being increasingly incorporated into chronic pain self-management interventions as a tool to help patients set goals and to tailor intervention content based on patient progress. Yet older adults from resource-challenged communities may face significant barriers to using these monitors and reporting activity data. Our pilot study will focus on wearable monitor use among older adults in Detroit with chronic musculoskeletal pain, testing the feasibility and validity of various technology-based strategies for reporting daily step count data. The study will also assess whether six weeks of monitor use is associated with improvements in functioning, relative to a control group.