Abstract
Eight physically disabled children with independent walking ability participated to investigate daily physical activity levels using heart rate during a 24-hour period. The mean heart rate during awaking period was lower than that in previous reports. However more elevated heart rate than 110b/min was observed in such vigorous activities as physical education, adaptive activity and running. The standard deviation and skewness were greater than those of the normal persons in our previous study. The standard deviation reflects variety of daily physical activity. The skewness provides a good indicator of higher heart rate. The experimental results showed that they had various daily physical activities including vigorous activities with the higher heart rate. Maximum oxygen uptake (VO2max) was estimated to evaluate whether the daily physical activities contributed to improving good health and physical fitness or not. The vigorous physical activity produced the higher heart rate corresponding to greater than 50% VO2max. The intensity of the physical activity indicated possibility of improving the physical fitness. The duration time, however, did not satisfied prescription for the purpose. More prolonged vigorous activity in daily living may be one of required efforts to achieve the elevated physical fitness.
