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Digital measures

Activity, sleep and heart rate in people with cancer

A wearable provides a time series, not an explanation. Reduced activity may reflect symptoms, treatment schedules, behaviour, non-wear or a technical gap; a defensible study keeps those possibilities separate.

Audience
For digital-biomarker researchers and oncology teams
Status
Research information, not medical advice
Editorial
NPO NT project team; scientific concept by Dr Artem Poltoratskiy
Review
No independent external medical review of this edition is claimed
Updated
Reviewed 19 August 2026
01

Activity

Steps, movement duration and sedentary periods are common outputs, but they depend on manufacturer algorithms and user behaviour. A reproducible feature definition matters more than a consumer wellness score.

02

Sleep and heart rate

Consumer wearables infer sleep from movement and physiological signals, with device-specific accuracy and missingness. Heart rate and variability have many possible causes. Neither should be interpreted as a cancer-treatment toxicity without separate validation.

03

Protocol minimum

  • Device model, firmware and source fields.
  • Feature algorithm and transformation version.
  • Quality and missing-data criteria.
  • Personal baseline and time window.
  • Human-review rule without autonomous treatment advice.