Evaluation of Motor Function in Premanifest Huntington Disease Using Q-motor Digitomotography
Objective:
The primary objective of this analysis was to assess for differences in voluntary motor function between patients with premanifest (presymptomatic) Huntington disease and healthy controls.
Background:
Huntington Disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disorder affecting multiple domains including cognitive, behavioral and motor. The Quantitative Motor (Q-Motor) assessment is a means of quantifying motor function in HD and includes digitomotography (finger tapping), dysdiadochomotography (pronate/supinate tapping), manumotography (grasping), choreomotography (chorea), pedomotography (foot tapping) and glossomotography (tongue protrusion) tasks. Digitomotography is a simple task analyzing the regularity of finger tapping on a force transducer or keyboard, from which multiple variables can be calculated including lengths between onset and offset of taps, tap speed, and variation in tap intervals.
Design/Methods:
This was a data analysis project comparing average performance on Q-Motor digitomotography between patients with premanifest Huntington's disease (n=22) and healthy controls (n=24). Data from multiple visits were included.
Results:
HD patients were found to have significantly more variation in finger taps (p<0.05), specifically a higher average standard deviation of all interval lengths between onset and offset of taps, between the peaks of two consecutive taps, and between the onsets of two consecutive taps. Control subjects were found to have a significantly faster tap speed (p<0.05), specifically a lower average standard deviation of intertap intervals and tap speed falling edge time.
Conclusions:
The Q-Motor assessment can be used to detect deficits in voluntary motor function in the early stages of HD.
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