6-Minute Walk Test

The 6-Minute Walk Test is a simple test that is used to assess a patient's tolerance to exercise or ability to exercise. This test is primarily used with older patients or patients that have some degree of breathlessness and disability caused by pulmonary disease or heart disease. The basic test is simply measuring how far a person can walk in 6-minutes. A person with severe breathlessness or frail health condition will not be able to walk very far.

There are different varieties of 6-minute walk tests. However, the basic version of the test is described in many published papers and medical articles, such as the examples below:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/6-minute-walk-test

https://www.lung.org/lung-health-diseases/lung-procedures-and-tests/six-minute-walk-test

https://www.thecardiologyadvisor.com/home/decision-support-in-medicine/cardiology/the-6-minute-walk-test/

This mobile app implements an enhanced version of the 6-minute walk test (6MWT), which also provides the ability to record the heart rate and blood oxygen level (PO2Sat). The reason for this additional data is that it enables researchers to differentiate between breathlessness caused by reduced pulmonary function and breathlessness caused by reduced cardiac function.

By itself, this mobile app does NOT collect or share any data with a server. But this app can be used together with ANOTHER mobile app that is designed to collect data and store it in a secure database as part of a clinical study.
As an example, this mobile app can be used together with the Pulmonary Screener mobile app that provides database support and the ability to send data to a remote server where it can be stored. You can view the Pulmonary Screener mobile app in this link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobiletechnologylab.pulmonary_screener&hl=en_US&gl=US

An example of how these apps can be used together is demonstrated in the following YouTube video (for the case of Pulmonary Screener):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4p5Uaq32FU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x5pqLo9OrU

If you wish to use this mobile app as part of a clinical study using smart phone data collection, please contact our lab for more information.

Thank you.

Contact:
-- Rich Fletcher (fletcher@media.mit.edu)
MIT Mobile Technology Lab
Mechanical Engineering Dept.