Automated functional upper limb evaluation of patients with Friedreich ataxia using serious games rehabilitation exercises.
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ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Friedreich ataxia (FRDA) is a disease with neurological and systemic involvement. Clinical assessment tools commonly used for FRDA become less effective in evaluating decay in patients with advanced FRDA, particularly when they are in a wheelchair. Further motor worsening mainly impairs upper limb function. In this study, we tested if serious games (SG) developed for rehabilitation can be used as an assessment tool for upper limb function even in patients with advanced FRDA. METHODS:A specific SG has been developed for physical rehabilitation of patients suffering from neurologic diseases. The use of this SG, coupled with Kinect sensor, has been validated to perform functional evaluation of the upper limbs with healthy subjects across lifespan. Twenty-seven FRDA patients were included in the study. Patients were invited to perform upper limb rehabilitation exercises embedded in SG. Motions were recorded by the Kinect and clinically relevant parameters were extracted from the collected motions. We tested if the existence of correlations between the scores from the serious games and the severity of the disease using clinical assessment tools commonly used for FRDA. Results of patients were compared with a group a healthy subjects of similar age. RESULTS:Very highly significant differences were found for time required to perform the exercise (increase of 76%, t(68)?=?7.22, P?
SUBMITTER: Bonnechere B
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6172838 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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