doi:10.3389/fphys.2021.706545engSokas D.Paliakaite B.Rapalis A.Marozas V.Bailón R.Petrenas A.Detection of Walk Tests in Free-Living Activities Using a Wrist-Worn DeviceART-2021-125695Exercise testing to assess the response to physical rehabilitation or lifestyle interventions is administered in clinics thus at best can be repeated only few times a year. This study explores a novel approach to collecting information on functional performance through walk tests, e.g., a 6-min walk test (6MWT), unintentionally performed in free-living activities. Walk tests are detected in step data provided by a wrist-worn device. Only those events of minute-to-minute variation in walking cadence, which is equal or lower than the empirically determined maximal SD (e.g., 5-steps), are considered as walk test candidates. Out of detected walk tests within the non-overlapping sliding time interval (e.g., 1-week), the one with the largest number of steps is chosen as the most representative. This approach is studied on a cohort of 99 subjects, assigned to the groups of patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD) and healthy subjects below and over 40-years-old, who were asked to wear the device while maintaining their usual physical activity regimen. The total wear time was 8, 864 subject-days after excluding the intervals of occasionally discontinued monitoring. About 82% (23/28) of patients with CVD and 88% (21/24) of healthy subjects over 40-years-old had at least a single 6MWT over the 1st month of monitoring. About 52% of patients with CVD (12/23) and 91% (19/21) of healthy subjects over 40-years-old exceeded 500 m. Patients with CVD, on average, walked 46 m shorter 6MWT distance (p = 0.04) compared to healthy subjects. Unintentional walk testing is feasible and could be valuable for repeated assessment of functional performance outside the clinical setting. © Copyright © 2021 Sokas, Paliakaite, Rapalis, Marozas, Bailón and Petrenas.2021http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/15101410.3389/fphys.2021.706545http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/151014oai:zaguan.unizar.es:151014info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA-FSE/T39-20R-BSICoS groupinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO-FEDER/RTI2018-097723-B-I00Frontiers in physiology 12 (2021), 706545 [13 pp.]byhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.esinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess