TY  - JOUR
AU  - Seemann, Jens
AU  - Beyme, Theresa
AU  - John, Natalie
AU  - Harmuth, Florian
AU  - Giese, Martin
AU  - Schöls, Ludger
AU  - Timmann, Dagmar
AU  - Synofzik, Matthis
AU  - Ilg, Winfried
TI  - Capture of Longitudinal Change in Real-Life Walking in Cerebellar Ataxia Increases Patient Relevance and Effect Size.
JO  - Movement disorders
VL  - 40
IS  - 7
SN  - 0885-3185
CY  - New York, NY
PB  - Wiley
M1  - DZNE-2025-00871
SP  - 1343 - 1355
PY  - 2025
AB  - With disease-modifying drugs for degenerative ataxias on the horizon, ecologically valid measures of gait performance that can detect patient-relevant changes in trial-like time frames are highly warranted.In this 2-year longitudinal study, we aimed to unravel ataxic gait measures sensitive to longitudinal changes in patients' real lives using wearable sensors.We assessed longitudinal gait changes of 26 participants with degenerative cerebellar disease (Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia [SARA]: 9.4 ± 4.1) at baseline, 1-year, and 2-year follow-up using three body-worn inertial sensors in two conditions: (1) laboratory-based walking (LBW); and (2) real-life walking (RLW). In RLW, a context-sensitive analysis was performed by selecting comparable walking bouts according to macroscopic gait characteristics. Gait analysis focused on measures of spatio-temporal variability, particularly stride length variability, lateral step deviation, and a compound measure of spatial variability (SPCmp).Gait variability measures showed high test-retest reliability in both walking conditions (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC], ≥0.82). Cross-sectional analyses revealed high correlations of gait measures with ataxia severity (SARA, effect size ρ ≥ 0.75); and with patients' subjective balance confidence (Activity-specific Balance Confidence scale [ABC]: ρ ≥ 0.71). Although SARA showed longitudinal changes only after 2 years, the gait measure SPCmp revealed changes after 1 year with high effect size (rprb = 0.80). Sample size estimation for the gait measure SPCmp showed a required cohort size of n = 42 participants (n = 38; spinocerebellar ataxias [SCA]1/2/3 subgroup) to detect a 50
KW  - Humans
KW  - Female
KW  - Male
KW  - Cerebellar Ataxia: physiopathology
KW  - Cerebellar Ataxia: complications
KW  - Longitudinal Studies
KW  - Middle Aged
KW  - Aged
KW  - Walking: physiology
KW  - Gait Analysis
KW  - Gait Disorders, Neurologic: physiopathology
KW  - Gait Disorders, Neurologic: etiology
KW  - Reproducibility of Results
KW  - Disease Progression
KW  - Gait: physiology
KW  - biomarker (Other)
KW  - cerebellar ataxia (Other)
KW  - digital health (Other)
KW  - real‐life walking (Other)
KW  - wearable sensors (Other)
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:40395207
C2  - pmc:PMC12273614
DO  - DOI:10.1002/mds.30230
UR  - https://pub.dzne.de/record/280027
ER  -