Visiting Instructor Stanford Univeristy Palo Alto, California, United States
Introduction: Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy leads to loss of function and reduced quality of life. Patients with cervical myelopathy have gait impairment and aberrant spinal alignment which can potentially be detected with objective gait assessment. Wearable sensors can objectively quantify physical performance among patients with mobility limiting disorders. The aim of this study is to accurately measure physical function of patients with degenerative cervical myelopathy using quantitative spatiotemporal measurements of gait available from wearable sensor-based assessment that utilizes data from inertial measurement units (IMUs) that quantify various time and frequency domain parameters.
Methods: Patients with degenerative cervical myelopathy undergoing surgery will be recruited prospectively. Pre-operative and 3-month post-operative assessments will be done using the sensor technology in 10 patients and an equal number of healthy controls. Functional tests will include Sit-to-Stand, Timed up & Go, Tandem Walk and 6 Minute Walk. Participants will also be asked to complete questionnaires including Visual Analog Score, Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System-29, Oswestry Disability Index, Modified Japanese Orthopaedic Association score and Neck Disability Index.
Results: We plan to find the correlation between functional status and self-reported pain to identify disease-specific digital biomarkers in comparison with healthy controls, and to understand the link between biomechanics and signals derived from body-worn sensors. We will expand on our previous work by extending our sensor-based physical performance assessment and mobility phenotyping approach while using improved multi-modal sensor technology, advanced biomechanical modeling tools, and robust machine learning to characterize gait impairment in patients with cervical myelopathy.
Conclusion : This study will provide insight into subtle changes associated with disease progression and treatments. To our knowledge this is the largest study characterizing specific differences in gait parameters in pre- and post-treatment settings for patients with degenerative cervical myelopathy compared with healthy controls.
