Abstract
Neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson’s diseases (PD), and Huntington’s disease (HD) are not rare neurological diseases. They affect different neurological systems and present various characteristic gait abnormalities. We retrieved gait signals of the right and left feet from a public domain on the Physionet. There were 13 patients with ALS, 15 patients with PD, 20 patients with HD and 16 healthy controls (HC). We used multiscale approximate entropy (MAE) to analyze ground reaction force on both feet. Our study shows that MAE increases with scales in all tested subjects. The group HD has the highest MAE and group ALS has the lowest MAE. We can differentiate ALS from HC by MAE, while scale factors >10 in the left foot. There are few significant differences of MAE between the HC and HD. We found a good correlation of MAE between both feet in group ALS. In conclusion, our results indicate that MAE analysis of gait signals can be used for diagnosis and long-term assessment for ALS and probably HD. Similarity of MAE between both feet can also be a diagnostic marker for ALS.
Highlights
Walking steadily involves a complex integration of multiple neurological systems and attributes to proprioception, vestibular system, coordination of agonistic and antagonistic muscles, muscle strength, stability of the skeletal system, neurons for programming and cognition, etc. [1]
In terms of pathophysiological mechanisms, the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) group presented gait problems caused by muscle weakness, the Huntington’s disease (HD) group had coordination problems associated with hyperkinesia, and the Parkinson’s diseases (PD)
Group had unsteadiness associated with bradykinesia, which resulted from degeneration of the basal ganglia
Summary
Walking steadily involves a complex integration of multiple neurological systems and attributes to proprioception, vestibular system, coordination of agonistic and antagonistic muscles (mainly controlled by the cerebellum and basal ganglia), muscle strength, stability of the skeletal system, neurons for programming and cognition, etc. [1]. Gait evaluation is a very important clinical assessment for patients with neurological diseases [2,3]. Bipedal gait cycle is a useful quantitative analysis of gaits, defined as the time period during locomotion: the time that elapses from one foot contacting the ground until the same foot touching the ground again to propel the person’s center of gravity at the right direction of motion. A single gait cycle, termed as a stride, is divided into a stance period and swing period depending on the motion of the leg and ground reacting force [4,5]. Several devices are used to record gait signals and many innovative methods have been applied to assess gait cycles [6]
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