Personalized text messages effectively promote increased physical activity after a cardiovascular event.

Exercise is one of the best ways to reduce your risk of heart disease and secondary cardiovascular conditions, such as heart attack and stroke.

As more people use wearable technology such as smartwatches, medical researchers continue to study whether it can effectively promote physical activity.

This includes customized messaging designed to encourage individual patients to be more active where they are, such as walking outside when the weather is nice.

A study led by the University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center found that personalized text messages effectively encouraged patients to increase their physical activity after a major heart-related event, such as a heart attack or surgery, but the effect diminished afterwards.

This study Circulation: Cardiovascular quality and outcomes; This comes out of the Virtual App-Enabled Environments to Increase Physical Activity study, or VALENTINE study.

The randomized clinical trial evaluated physical activity levels over a six-month period in more than 200 patients enrolled in cardiac rehabilitation who received a mobile health intervention to encourage movement versus those who did not. The text messages reflected conditions such as weather, time and day of the week.

During the first 30 days, Apple Watch users who received the intervention saw a 10% increase in steps taken in the hour following the message, while Fitbit users saw a 17% increase.

Our study strongly suggests that a simple, low-cost intervention delivered through mobile technology may help prevent secondary cardiovascular events in patients.”

Jessica R. Golbas, MD, first author, assistant professor of medicine and cardiology at the University of Michigan Medical School and member of the University of Michigan Precision Medicine Initiative

Cardiac rehabilitation is a physician-supervised program that combines physical activity and lifestyle changes to improve health after cardiovascular disease. Despite being recommended, it is underused.

After a month, the impact of personalized messaging began to wane for both Apple Watch and Fitbit users.

The researchers say this regression is natural as patients become accustomed to the messages, but the team is optimistic that they can further improve mobile health interventions by better customizing them over time.

“From this study, we’ve learned a lot about how patients can better use digital health tools like smartwatches in the future,” said senior author Brahmajee Nalamothu, MD, professor of medicine and cardiology at the University of Michigan Medical School.

“While the most consistent effects were seen in the first month of smartwatch use, this study allows us to further narrow down how different individuals may be affected. This is a really exciting time for the field of mobile health technology.”