Quantitative assessment of cerebellar ataxia, through automated limb functional tests.
Ragil Krishna, Pubudu N Pathirana, Malcolm Horne and 2 others
PMID 30813963WHAT IT FOUND
A sensor worn during bedside coordination tests separated people with cerebellar ataxia from controls and ranked severity.
It may help clinicians measure ataxia objectively.
Key findings
01A wearable sensor recorded movement during the finger-to-nose, hand-turning and heel-to-shin tests in 70 participants, 39 with ataxia and 31 without.
02The sensor-based model sorted participants into controls, mild ataxia and significant ataxia, with accuracy of 0.9175, 0.9350 and 0.8955 for the three tests on a scale where the maximum is 1.
03The finger-to-nose test worked best when rotation-related sensor measures were used, while the hand-turning and heel-to-shin tests worked best when linear acceleration was used.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The study had 70 participants, so the sensor algorithm was not tested in a wider clinical population. The performance was checked with cross-validation on the same participants, not with an independent external sample. The paper did not report dropouts or blinding of the analysis to clinician scores. The study did not test whether the sensor improves diagnosis, tracks change over time, or guides treatment.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia) and the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health (Australia). The supplied text does not include a conflict-of-interest declaration.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the reported accuracy values as proof that this sensor can replace clinical ataxia assessment. The values came from cross-validation in this sample, and the paper did not test whether the sensor changes patient management.