Ask a clinical question and tap into Healio AI’s knowledge base.

February 03, 2026

1 min read

** Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

** Added to email alerts

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Key takeaways:

• Individuals with knee osteoarthritis and low activity levels in the morning and evening had elevated mortality risk.
• Most patients with knee OA have similar activity patterns.

Individuals with knee osteoarthritis who had low activity levels in the morning and evening demonstrated a two-fold higher risk for earlier mortality than other patients, according to data published in Arthritis Care & Research.

“We were interested in whether there were different patterns of physical activity within the day, and if such patterns were related to health outcomes in adults with knee OA, specifically mortality in this particular study,” Daniel K. White**,**** PT, ScD, MSc,** associate professor at the University of Delaware, told Healio. “The thought is that our daily activities can vary for day-to-day but symptoms of knee OA, such as pain and morning stiffness, may affect how much and when we do things. However, this has yet to be examined.”

To examine the association between within-day physical activity patterns and mortality in patients with, or at high risk for, knee OA, White and colleagues conducted a secondary analysis of data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative. In all, the researchers assessed data from 1,927 adults.

The exposure was within-day patterns of physical activity using a Multidimensional (14-hour) Multilevel (4-day) Functional Principal Component Analysis, which the researchers used to assess accelerometer data from analytic baseline. Meanwhile, the primary outcome was all-cause mortality up to 8 years of follow-up.

According to the researchers, there were four primary within-day activity patterns accounting for approximately 82% of sample variability. Participants who demonstrated low activity levels in the morning and evening had 2.09 times the risk for mortality compared with those with average activity patterns within the overall cohort (adjusted HR = 2.09; 95% CI, 1.15-3.8).

“What we found was that there were distinct patterns of physical activity throughout the day,” White said. “We found that those with little activity in the morning and evening had twice the risk for mortality than those with usual activity. Now, we are unsure what is causing these patterns, but nonetheless, this paper starts to prove the concept that activity patterns within a day may be important signs of trouble for adults with knee OA.”

For more information:

**Daniel K. White, PT, ScD, MSc, **can be reached at dkw@udel.edu.

Published by:

Ask a clinical question and tap into Healio AI’s knowledge base.

• PubMed, enrolling/recruiting trials, guidelines
• Clinical Guidance, Healio CME, FDA news
• Healio’s exclusive daily news coverage of clinical data

Read more about

** Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

** Added to email alerts

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.