Free-Living Motor Activity Monitoring in Ataxia-Telangiectasia

In this study, we test the hypothesis that metrics derived from a single wrist sensor worn at home provide accurate, reliable, and interpretable information about neurological disease severity in children with A-T.A total of 15 children with A-T and 15 age- and sex-matched controls wore a sensor with a triaxial accelerometer on their dominant wrist for 1  week at home. Activity intensity measures, derived from the sensor data, were compared with in-person neurological evaluation on the Brief Ataxia Rating Scale (BARS) and performance on a validated computer mouse task.Children with A-T were inactive the same proportion of each day as controls but produced more low intensity movements (p <  0.01; Cohen’sd = 1.48) and fewer high intensity movements (p <  0.001; Cohen’sd = 1.71). The range of activity intensities was markedly reduced in A-T compared to controls (p <  0.0001; Cohen’sd = 2.72). The activity metrics correlated strongly with arm, gait, and total clinical severity (r: 0.71 –0.87;p <  0.0001), correlated with specific computer task motor features (r: 0.67 –0.92;p <  0.01), demonstrated high reliability (r: 0.86 –0.93;p <  0.00001), and were not significantly influenced by age in the healthy control group.Motor activity metrics from a single, inexpensive wrist sensor during free-living behavior provide accurate and reliable information about diagnosis, neurological disease severity, and motor performanc...
Source: The Cerebellum - Category: Neurology Source Type: research