Article

This study further validates accelerometers as a measure of walking impairment in
persons with multiple sclerosis. We examined total movement counts and three
novel methods of processing accelerometer data (i.e. standard deviation,
approximate entropy and detrended fluctuation analysis) for quantifying real-life
walking impairment in this population. A total of 70 individuals with a definite
diagnosis of multiple sclerosis completed a battery of patient-rated measures of
walking impairment and then wore an ActiGraph accelerometer for 7 days. The data
were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance and bivariate correlation
analysis. The results indicated that total daily movement counts and standard
deviation of daily movement counts differed between groups of persons with mild,
moderate, and severe self-reported disability status and who were independently
ambulatory or ambulatory with assistance. Those two metrics for the accelerometer
data further demonstrated strong correlations with patient-rated measures of
walking impairment. By comparison, there were smaller and often non-significant
differences in approximate entropy and detrended fluctuation analysis metrics for
the accelerometer data as a function of disability and ambulatory status, and
only moderate correlations with patient-rated measures of walking impairment. The
results confirm that the metric of total daily movement counts correlates with
level of disability, ambulatory status, and patient reports of walking impairment
in persons with multiple sclerosis. We further demonstrate that variability,
indexed by the standard deviation of daily movement counts, correlates with
multiple sclerosis-related disability, ambulatory status, and self-reported
walking impairment. Such results provide preliminary evidence that variability in
accelerometer counts is not simply noise and may provide important information
about multiple sclerosis-related walking impairment.

Langue : ANGLAIS

Tiré à part : OUI