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U.S. researchers develop new tool to record subtle changes in patients with multiple sclerosis

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2020-02-27 13:03:58Xinhua Editor : Li Yan ECNS App Download

Researchers at the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) have developed a new, multi-sensor tool to measure subtle changes in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), allowing physicians to respond more frequently and more quickly to changes in patients' symptoms and condition.

The study was published on Wednesday in the online issue of Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology.

MS affects approximately 1 million people in the United States and 2.5 million worldwide. It is one of the most common causes of non-traumatic disability among young and middle-aged adults, according to the study. The cause of the disease is unknown, but the condition, which typically appears between ages of 20-40, is more common in women.

Traditional assessment of MS involves periodic clinical exams, which may only produce actionable findings over the course of several years. There are no tools to measure smaller or more subtle changes in the disease that may happen in shorter intervals.

The new device employs a combination of sensors that have been repurposed from commercial uses. The patient needs to wear a small, sensor-laden band on the forearm or calf, complete 20 finger or foot taps, and then repeat the procedure on all four limbs. It will take less than five minutes to do so, and the data is wirelessly downloaded to a computer in real-time.

"We currently lack reliable measures of subtle MS disability progression over short time intervals," said senior study author Jennifer Graves, a neurologist and associate professor of neurosciences at UC San Diego.

"The use of multi-sensors allows for use of complementary data-types that can be employed for a more comprehensive view of the movement," said Dr. Graves.

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