Researchers have developed a new system, KineMAT, to evaluate spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) patients’ motor skills. In a published study, they concluded that “markerless whole-body motion capture using the KineMAT proved to objectively capture motor performance in infants and children with SMA across different severity and ages.”
The KineMAT system used an affordable sensor camera to record a patient’s spontaneous activity (whole-body) for 2 minutes. To validate the utility of KineMAT, the authors compared its performance with that of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Infant Test of Neuromuscular Disorders (CHOP INTEND) in 10 SMA patients (age range, 2-46 months, CHOP INTEND score, 10-50).
Read more about spinal muscular atrophy staging
Continue Reading
Out of the 5 preselected motion parameters, 4 correlated with CHOP INTEND scores. These included standard deviation of joint angles (r=0.959), standard deviation of joint position (r=0.933), absolute distance of hand/foot traveled (r=0.937), and absolute distance of hand/foot traveled against gravity (r=0.923).
The 5 predefined motion parameters aimed to represent 56 degrees of freedom of upper extremities, lower extremities, and trunk joints.
CHOP INTEND is a standardized motor outcome measure originally developed for weak infants with SMA type 1. The test includes 16 items that are rated on a 0‑4 point scale.
Reference
Blaschek A, Hesse N, Warken B, et al. Quantitative motion measurements based on markerless 3D full-body tracking in children with SMA highly correlate with standardized motor assessments. J Neuromuscul Dis. Published online July 21, 2021. doi:10.3233/JND-200619
