Multimodal evaluation of gait and stride dynamics in relapsing and progressive forms of multiple sclerosis

Ambulation measures are being increasingly recognized as highly relevant to the quantification of multiple sclerosis (MS) severity and response to treatment. Feet paths are highly informative for gait analysis and we have recently designed a new system, which captures the position of the feet in real time. We use several range laser scanners (RLS) to analyze a horizontal slice of the scene in which each foot is considered as a point, and the vertical movements are ignored. Neat ambulation measures may be easily extracted such as walking speed, distance between feet over time, swing phase duration, and gait asymmetry in specific settings of walking recommendations. Our RLS platform is much cheaper than existing sensor-based and motion capture systems and may be more convenient for the development of multicentric clinical trials settings since patients can be easily and rapidly assessed without tags or sensors in the hallway of an outpatient clinic. We use 4 BEA LZR-i100 RLS arranged in a corridor of at least 10m long and 4m width, devoid of obstacle. The scanned plane is chosen to be located at 15 cm above the floor, which is right above the tibio-tarsal joint of the ankle in a barefoot configuration for adult individuals in stance phase.
We expect further studies to validate and empower the meaning of non-intrusive RLS-derived gait measures that should pave the ground for major improvements in the way we will assess the efficacy of disease-modifying treatments (DMTs), physical therapy and symptomatic interventions on walking impairment, ataxia and fatigability in MS. RLS-derived gait measures may also reveal to be crucial in the near future for the development of treatments that would specifically target progressive forms of MS.