Clinical assessments of walking traditionally focus on capacity—what individuals can do under controlled conditions—yet performance—what they actually do in daily life—provides a far more meaningful measure of rehabilitation outcomes. Longstanding assumptions that capacity reflects performance are increasingly challenged by evidence showing the two can diverge. This gap is critical, as patients seek rehabilitation to improve real-world function, yet progress is hampered by limited tools to measure daily walking behaviour. This session explores how wearable technology can help bridge this gap between capacity and performance, offering actionable insight into real-world walking behaviour.

With growing emphasis on walking performance as a marker of improvement in neurological and geriatric rehabilitation, clinicians and researchers are increasingly turning to consumer-friendly wearables to quantify daily walking activity. This session will describe an ongoing validation study examining the accuracy and reliability of the Fitbit Sense smartwatch compared with the research-grade StepWatch Activity Monitor (SAM) in older adults with and without mobility impairments.

Finally, the session will illustrate how validated wearable data can transform rehabilitation research and practice—moving beyond measurement to meaningful action—through findings from a feedback-based mall walking study that used wearable metrics to enhance daily walking performance.

Upon completion of this course, the attendee will be able to - 

• Differentiate between activity capacity measured in clinical settings and performance measured in real-world environments.
• Evaluate validation evidence on wearable sensors, emphasizing accuracy, reliability, and limitations compared with gold-standard tools for assessing walking performance.
• Illustrate how validated wearable data can inform rehabilitation research and interventions aimed at improving walking performance in daily life.