Analysis of Huntington's patient gait by imaging systems during three years

Different studies have been done on Huntington’s disease which mostly put emphasis on clinical observations and genetic tests. Direct observation is the method with the lowest cost however its problem is giving qualitative results which do not lead to careful diagnosis. Utilizing engineering methods of motion analysis, different movement disorders of these patients can be verified carefully which between all of them gait disorders are of great importance and are studied in this paper. Methods & materials: In this research to achieve quantitative and precise gait analysis of Huntington’s patients, an imaging system has been used and by that, gait of a patient with Huntington’s has been assessed for three years with the interval of two months. With the use of mentioned system, angular changes of joint's lower extremities and time of movement are measured as kinematic parameters. Experiment results illustrated that these parameters can be used to diagnose and evaluate disease process, which means during disease progress, magnitude of changes of joint’s angles in lower extremities decreases and time of movement performance increases.