• Before adjustment for mean activity levels, higher MVPA variability was related to lower frailty among inactive adults. • Among stationary adults, higher stationary time variability linked to lower frailty. • Mean MVPA and stationary time may be more important than activity variability. • Lower MVPA and stationary variability was observed among frailer individuals. • Results were sensitive to accelerometer wear time. This study tested the hypothesis that greater variability in moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) and stationary time is associated with lower frailty among inactive (0.455), but higher average MVPA was associated with lower frailty in both active (β=-0.0002, p =0.02) and inactive (β=-0.0036, p 0.741). Lower average stationary time was associated with lower frailty in non-stationary and stationary adults even when wear time was considered ( p <0.001). After accounting for accelerometer wear time, neither MVPA nor stationary time variability were associated with frailty, highlighting that overall activity may be associated with frailty rather than day-to-day accumulation patterns.
Shivgulam et al. (Sun,) studied this question.