Article

Instrumental gait analysis is increasingly recognized as a useful tool for the
evaluation of movement disorders. The various assessment devices available to
date have mostly been evaluated in healthy populations only.
We aimed to explore
whether reliability and validity seen in healthy subjects can also be assumed in
subjects with cerebellar ataxic gait. Gait was recorded simultaneously with two
devices - a sensor-embedded walkway and an inertial sensor based system - to
explore test accuracy in two groups of subjects: one with mild to moderate
cerebellar ataxia due to a subtype of autosomal-dominantly inherited
neurodegenerative disorder (SCA14), the other were healthy subjects matched for
age and height (CTR). Test precision was assessed by retest within session for
each device. In conclusion, accuracy and repeatability of gait measurements were
not compromised by ataxic gait disorder. The accuracy of spatial measures was
speed-dependent and a direct comparison of stride length from both devices will
be most reliably made at comfortable speed. Measures of stride variability had
low agreement between methods in CTR and at retest in both groups. However, the
marked increase of stride variability in ataxia outweighs the observed amount of
imprecision.
CI - Copyright (c) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS