Daily Activity Lifelogs of People With Heart Failure: Observational Study

Background: Globally, heart failure (HF) affects more than 64 million people, and attempts to reduce its social and economic burden are a public health priority. Interventions to support people with HF to self-manage have been shown to reduce hospitalizations, improve quality of life, and reduce mortality rates. Understanding how people self-manage is imperative to improve future interventions; however, most approaches to date, have used self-report methods to achieve this. Wearable cameras provide a unique tool to understand the lived experiences of people with HF and the daily activities they undertake, which could lead to more effective interventions. However, their potential for understanding chronic conditions such as HF is unclear. Objective: This study aimed to determine the potential utility of wearable cameras to better understand the activities of daily living in people living with HF. Methods: The "Seeing is Believing (SIB)" study involved 30 patients with HF who wore wearable cameras for a maximum of 30 days. We used the E-Mysceal web-based lifelog retrieval system to process and analyze the wearable camera image data set. Search terms for 7 daily activities (physical activity, gardening, shopping, screen time, drinking, eating, and medication intake) were developed and used for image retrieval. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to compare the number of images retrieved using different search terms. Temporal patterns in daily activities were examined, and differences before and after hospitalization were assessed. Results: E-Mysceal exhibited sensitivity to specific search terms, leading to significant variations in the number of images retrieved for each activity. The highest number of images returned were related to eating and drinking, with fewer images for physical activity, screen time, and taking medication. The majority of captured activities occurred before midday. Notably, temporal differences in daily activity patterns were observed for participants hospitalized during this study. The number of medication images increased after hospital discharge, while screen time images decreased. Conclusions: Wearable cameras offer valuable insights into daily activities and self-management in people living with HF. E-Mysceal efficiently retrieves relevant images, but search term sensitivity underscores the need for careful selection.