Cohort Profile: The McMaster Monitoring My Mobility Study (MacM3)
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Purpose
The McMaster Monitoring My Mobility (MacM3) study aims to understand trajectories of mobility decline in later life using multi-sensor wearable technology. To our knowledge, MacM3 is the first major cohort to combine accelerometry and GPS to track real-world mobility in community-dwelling older adults.
Participants
Between May 2022 and May 2024, MacM3 recruited 1,556 community-dwelling adults aged 65 and older (mean age 73.9 years, SD = 5.5) from Hamilton and Toronto, Ontario. Of the cohort, 66.2% were female, 62.4% married/partnered, 75.3% had post-secondary education, and 47.2% had ≥3 comorbidities. Most were Canadian-born (69.3%) and White/Caucasian (88.2%), with greater ethnocultural diversity observed at the Toronto site.
Findings to date
At baseline, 56.7% of participants reported no mobility limitations, 15.9% had preclinical limitations, and 27.4% had minor mobility limitations. Additionally, 37.5% had a fall in the previous year. Mean gait speed for the total sample was 1.23 m/s, with a mean Timed Up and Go time of 9.4 seconds and a 5x sit-to-stand time of 13.0 seconds. Wearables data from compliant users (≥7 days, ≥1 hours/day) showed a mean of 13.6 hours of daily wear over 10.2 days. Step count data (n = 1008) revealed a mean of 8,437 steps per day (SD = 2,943), ranging from 5,073 steps in the lowest quartile to 12,303 steps in the highest.
Future plans
Ongoing work aims to develop predictive models of mobility decline by integrating wearable, clinical, and environmental data. Pipeline enhancements will enable GPS/IMU fusion to explore mobility-environment interactions and support aging-in-place tools.
