Show Me How You Move and I Will Tell You Who You Are

Université Catholique de Louvain100 enrolled

Overview

The aim of this experiment is to gain a better understanding of the body movement patterns of patients with balance disorders (following damage to the vestibular system), as well as their cognitive performance profile. To achieve this, we will need to assess the performance of both patients and healthy subjects with no balance disorders. We will be using a newly-developed artificial intelligence tool to analyze body movement patterns on the basis of participants' videos, and we will also be evaluating participants' performance in a few simple tests of reaction times to image presentations on computer and/or tablet/smartphone. If you agree to take part in this experiment, you will be asked to perform a simple walking exercise in a corridor (filmed and supervised by a physiotherapist) as well as a few objective cognitive measurement tests (reaction time to attentional and vigilance tasks on computer and/or tablet/smartphone) and subjective tests (self-reported questionnaires) requiring around 40 minutes of investigation in total. In the long term, the results of this research will make it easier to assess balance disorders in patients with vestibular pathology, and better quantify any cognitive difficulties they may have.

Study Type

OBSERVATIONAL

Enrollment

100

Conditions

Vestibular Disease Vestibular Function Disorder

Interventions

To evaluate walking abilities, participants performed the Timed-Up \& Go (TUG) f our times (practice trial, normal, slow and fast speed). Patient's performances are videorecorded with an Intel RealSense depth camera D435i to capture their movements, and manual time recording of time taken (in seconds) and number of steps are carried out by the experimenters. Complementary to manual experimenter recording, a 2D human pose estimation method (OpenTUG) is applied to automatically extract the time and the number of steps taken by the participant during the TUG task.

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 18 YearsMax age: 90 YearsHealthy volunteers:

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

For patients : Inclusion Criteria: * Age between 18 and 90 years old. * Vestibular loss diagnosed by senior ENT doctors with the gold standard ENT measures (caloric testing, head impulse test and/or vestibular evoked myogenic potential, ocular and cervical). Exclusion Criteria: * Previous neurological disorders (stroke, dementia, …) * Current medication interfering with the testing (reducing reaction time). * Visual difficulties interfering with the testing (Visual field reduction,…) * Age below 18 years old. For healthy controls : Inclusion criteria : \- Age between 18 and 90 years old. Exclusion criteria: * Previous neurological disorders (stroke, dementia, …) * Current medication interfering with the testing (reducing reaction time) * Visual difficulties interfering with the testing (Visual field reduction,…) * Vertigo or balance complains or an history of previous vestibular disorder. * Age below 18 years old. * Not being able to understand the consigns of the task.

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Neuropsychological measures

evaluation to assess attention (Test for Attentional Performance -TAP-) Alertness and Divided attention tasks. Median reaction time and standard deviation of the median (regularity) are record in milliseconds. Slow reaction times and large standard deviations indicate more difficulties.