Abstract
Purpose : Little is known about objectively measured physical activity (PA) levels in children with visual impairment (VI). The aim of this study was to compare objective PA levels of children with VI and normal sight across different times of the regular school day and weekend days.
Methods : One hundred children with VI and 100 normally sighted peers aged 7 to 17 years from integrated schools for the blind in Nepal wore an actigraph on their non-dominant wrist for one week. PA outcomes included mean activity counts per minute and the proportion of waking time engaging sedentary PA, or performing light, moderate and vigorous intensity PA. Activity count per minute was modelled using a series of generalised linear mixed effects models (assuming a gamma distribution for activity counts, and binomial distribution for PA proportions ) with vision , age, sex, time of day (before, during, or after school or weekend) and a vision by time of day interaction entered as fixed effects and a random intercept fitted for each child.
Results : Data of 83 children with VI and 77 normally sighted peers were included. Mean activity count per minute was lower in the children with VI (p<0.001), especially during and after school.
Vision by time of day interactions showed that children with VI were less sedentary than normally sighted children before school (55 %, CI 95%:53 %-57 % vs 62 %, CI 95%:60 %-64%) and on weekend (41%, CI95%: 39%-43% vs 45 %, CI 95%:43%-47%) yet more sedentary during school (36%, CI95%:34%-37% vs 30 %, CI95%:29%-32%). They also spent more time performing light PA across all periods of the day but spent less time performing moderate PA at school and vigorous PA during all periods of the day (p<0.001)
Conclusions : Our findings indicate that children with VI are participating in light and moderate PA and they do not perform as much vigorous PA as children with normal sight especially during school hours. There is a need for guidance to promote more intense PA programs in schools which are tailored for children with VI
This abstract was presented at the 2024 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, WA, May 5-9, 2024.