Article

An early diagnosis of peripheral neuropathy in diabetic patients is
useful in order to slow down the progress of this complication. Nerve conduction
tests are the gold standard for this diagnosis but they are challenging for the
patients. This study examines whether it is possible to assess the presence of
diabetic neuropathy at an early stage by static posturography tests. METHODS:
Static posturography tests were performed on 37 type-2 diabetic subjects (25
neuropathic patients and 12 non-neuropathic control subjects). Each subject was
tested twice under two visual conditions: open and closed eyes. Both "global"
(classic) and "structural" (model-based) posturographic parameters (PP) were
derived from centre-of-pressure trajectories. A total of 65 PP were computed but
only five were selected, normalized and fed to a linear classifier based on
linear discriminant analysis. RESULTS: This method correctly classified 86.5% of
the patients. Five subjects were misclassified and only 2 false negatives out of
25 neuropathic subjects were erroneously diagnosed as control subjects.
CONCLUSIONS: This paper shows that "global" and "structural" parameters derived
by static posturography tests, and classic linear statistical approaches, can be
used for the diagnosis of neuropathy provided PP are properly chosen and
normalized.
CI - Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS