Search

Background: Assessing motor functioning is important to monitor the disease course of multiple sclerosis (MS). Video-assisted rating of classic neurologic tests and activities of daily living may improve the detection of changes in motor functioning. We investigated the value of using video-assisted composite measures for the detection of changes in mobility and upper extremity function (UEF). Methods: Forty-three patients with MS were recorded performing motor function tests before and during treatment with fampridine. Patients were classified as improved or not improved on mobility composite (MOB-COM) and UEF composite (UEF-COM) measures based on neurologists’ ratings of the tests. The proportional agreements between the composite measures and the conventional measures—the Timed 25-Foot Walk test (T25FW) and the Nine-Hole Peg Test (NHPT)—were determined and compared with patient-perceived improvement, which was determined using patient-reported ratings of changes in mobility and UEF. Results: Agreement between MOB-COM and T25FW was 79.5%, and agreement between UEF-COM and NHPT was 82.1%. Twenty-six of 39 patients (66.7%) reported mobility improvement; 6 of these reports were confirmed by both T25FW and MOB-COM, 4 were confirmed by T25FW only, and 2 were confirmed by MOB-COM only. For UEF, 13 of 39 patients (33.3%) reported improvement; 3 of these were confirmed by the NHPT and 3 were confirmed by the UEF-COM. Conclusions: Compared with the conventional NHPT measure, the video-assisted composite measure of UEF detected additional patient-perceived improvement. This was less evident for mobility measures. Video-assisted composite measures may enhance the detection of treatment effects in MS clinical practice and trials.

Introduction The availability of consumer-facing health technologies for chronic disease management is skyrocketing, yet most are limited by low adoption rates. Improving adoption requires a better understanding of a target population's previous exposure to technology. We propose a low-resource approach of capturing and clustering technology exposure, as a mean to better understand patients and target health technologies. Methods Using Multiple Sclerosis (MS) as a case study, we applied exploratory multivariate factorial analyses to survey data from the Swiss MS Registry. We calculated individual-level factor scorings, aiming to investigate possible technology adoption clusters with similar digital behavior patterns. The resulting clusters were transformed using radar and then compared across sociodemographic and health status characteristics. Results Our analysis included data from 990 respondents, resulting in three clusters, which we defined as the (1) average users, (2) health-interested users, and (3) low frequency users. The average user uses consumer-facing technology regularly, mainly for daily, regular activities and less so for health-related purposes. The health-interested user also uses technology regularly, for daily activities as well as health-related purposes. The low-frequency user uses technology infrequently. Conclusions Only about 10% of our sample has been regularly using (adopting) consumer-facing technology for MS and health-related purposes. That might indicate that many of the current consumer-facing technologies for MS are only attractive to a small proportion of patients. The relatively low-resource exploratory analyses proposed here may allow for a better characterization of prospective user populations and ultimately, future patient-facing technologies that will be targeted to a broader audience., PLoS ONE, 18 (4), ISSN:1932-6203

Supplemental material, MSJ823955_supplemental_material for How do patients enter the healthcare system after the first onset of multiple sclerosis symptoms? The influence of setting and physician specialty on speed of diagnosis by Laura Barin, Christian P Kamm, Anke Salmen, Holger Dressel, Pasquale Calabrese, Caroline Pot, Sven Schippling, Claudio Gobbi, Stefanie Müller, Andrew Chan, Stephanie Rodgers, Marco Kaufmann, Vladeta Ajdacic-Gross, Nina Steinemann, Jürg Kesselring, Milo A Puhan and Viktor von Wyl in Multiple Sclerosis Journal

Supplemental Material for Factors associated with time from first-symptoms to diagnosis and treatment initiation of Multiple Sclerosis in Switzerland by Marco Kaufmann, Jens Kuhle, Milo A Puhan, Christian P Kamm, Andrew Chan, Anke Salmen, Jürg Kesselring, Pasquale Calabrese, Claudio Gobbi, Caroline Pot, Nina Steinemann, Rodgers Stephanie Viktor von Wyl and for the Swiss Multiple Sclerosis Registry (SMSR) in Multiple Sclerosis Journal—Experimental, Translational and Clinical

Supplemental material for Reference videos reduce variability of motor dysfunction assessments in multiple sclerosis by Marcus D’Souza, Saskia Steinheimer, Jonas Dorn, Cecily Morrison, Jacques Boisvert, Kristina Kravalis, Jessica Burggraaff, Caspar EP van Munster, Manuela Diederich, Abigail Sellen, Christian P Kamm, Frank Dahlke, Bernard MJ Uitdehaag and Ludwig Kappos in Multiple Sclerosis Journal – Experimental, Translational and Clinical