Quantitative assessment of Friedreich Ataxia via self-drinking activity

Ragil Krishna, Pubudu N Pathirana, Malcolm Horne, Louise Corben, David Szmulewicz; IEEE J Biomed Health Inform. 2021 Mar 25;PP. doi: 10.1109/JBHI.2021.3069007.

In this study, we propose an ataxia measuring device, in the form of a pressure canister capable of sensing certain kinetic and kinematic parameters of interest to quantify the impairment levels of participants particularly when engaged in an activity that is closely associated with daily living. In particular, the functional task of simulated drinking was utilised to capture characteristic features of disability manifestation in terms of diagnosis (separation of individuals with FA and controls) and severity assessment of individuals diagnosed with the debilitating condition of FA. Time and frequency domain analysis of these biomarkers enabled the classification of individuals with FA and control subjects to reach an accuracy of 98\% and a correlation level reaching 96\% with the clinical scores.