Auditory feedback control for improvement of gait in patients with Multiple Sclerosis.

Department of Computer Science, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. yoram.baram@gmail.com

OBJECTIVE: To study the use of auditory feedback for gait management and rehabilitation in patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). METHODS: An auditory feedback cue, responding to the patient's own steps in closed-loop, was produced by a wearable motion sensor and delivered to the patient through ear phones. On-line (device on) and residual short-term therapeutic effects on walking speed and stride length were measured in fourteen randomly selected patients with gait disturbances predominantly due to cerebellar ataxia. RESULTS: Patients showed an average improvement of 12.84% on-line and 18.75% residually in walking speed. Average improvement in stride length was 8.30% on-line and 9.93% residually. The improvement results are particularly noteworthy when compared with the lack of change in healthy control subjects. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with MS using auditory feedback cues showed improvement in walking abilities.

PMID: 17316692 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]