First Advisor

Gary Brodowicz

Term of Graduation

Fall 1997

Date of Publication

11-6-1997

Document Type

Thesis

Department

Community Health

Language

English

Subjects

Plethysmography, Physical fitness -- Testing

DOI

10.15760/etd.7247

Physical Description

1 online resource (vii, 79 pages)

Abstract

Plethysmography is a technique used for measuring alterations in the volume of organs or limbs. Japanese researchers have developed a relatively new application of plethysmography (accelerated plethysmography) that uses information from the pulse wave measured at the fingertip to make inferences about health and fitness status. The instrument used to collect data -- the Precaregraph (accelerated plethysmograph) -- provides an accelerated pulse waveform and APG index, a mathematical representation of the waveform. It was the purpose of this study to evaluate the validity of the Precaregraph by examining the relationship between the APG index and previously validated measures of health and fitness status.

Forty-three individuals volunteered for participation. Blood pressure, resting heart rate, weekly physical activity level, estimated V̇02max, cardiovascular disease risk, body composition and APG index were measured.

The APG index demonstrated acceptable reliability in the pilot study (R=.999). In the principal investigation, the only measures related to the APG index were age (r=-.780), V̇02max (r=.709), and weekly physical activity level (r=.328). No significant correlations were found between any other variables. Correlations with the same independent variables were found when subjects were dichotomized into older and younger groups and high-fit and low-fit groups.

It was concluded that the Precaregraph may be a useful instrument for evaluating fitness status, but its efficacy for evaluating health or disease remains to be determined. Further studies are needed to gather additional data to confirm these results.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Comments

A thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Health Education.

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this dissertation or thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to pdxscholar@pdx.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/30827

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