Reliability of a Body-worn Sensor System for Gait Analysis in Children With CP

Overview

Cerebral palsy (CP) is caused by a non-progressive injury in the developing brain, which leads to problems in functional mobility, posture, neuro musculoskeletal functions and gait. Around 75% of children with CP are ambulatory however they have gait problems such as excessive knee flexion, stiff knee, crouch gait or equinus which affects the quality of gait. When constructing an effective treatment plan in children with CP, a comprehensive assessment should be performed. One of the most essential assessments is gait analysis. Gait analysis is used in the quantitative assessment of gait disturbances providing functional diagnosis, assessment for treatment, planning, and monitoring of progress. Gait analysis aims to determine the factors leading to gait disturbances. To reach this aim, a large amount of quantitative data concerning the gait characteristics of a patient is analyzed. The assessment of these data can be performed via standardized clinical videos, recorded with numerical video cameras used in conjunction with optical 3D systems. The purpose of this study was to confirm the test-retest reliability of a commercially available body-worn sensor- G-Walk® sensor system-for spatiotemporal gait parameters in children with CP.

The G-Walk determines spatiotemporal parameters as well as pelvic rotations during gait and allows objective and precise analysis of movements with its wearable inertial sensor. It also enables 3D kinematic analysis of the pelvis, providing a functional analysis of disorders in gait caused by neuromuscular diseases The device is placed on an elastic belt and worn on the waist of the person being evaluated, with the center of the device at the fifth lumbar vertebrae. To ensure correct placement of the device, the L4-L5 intervertebral space was palpated via the posterior superior iliac spines (SIPS). After the accelerometer was placed, the children were asked to walk calmly at normal speed, on a 10 m track, whose boundaries were determined with colored lines and to return to the starting position. The values and gait characteristics of acceleration in the anteroposterior (AP) and mediolateral (ML) axes were transferred to the computer software program. The tilt of the pelvis in the sagittal plane in the flexion-extension direction, the oblique displacement in the coronal plane, the angles of the rotation of movement in the transverse plane and the symmetry values of the right and left sides are obtained. While the symmetry index ranges from 0 to 100, a value closer to 100 indicates that the gait is more symmetrical