Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Using smartphone sensors to detect unsteady walking in dogs
By Engelsman, Daniel et al.Ā·Published in Frontiers in veterinary scienceĀ·2022Ā·The Hatter Department of Marine TechnologiesĀ·View original on PubMed ā
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Original publication title: Measurement of Canine Ataxic Gait Patterns Using Body-Worn Smartphone Sensor Data.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of dogs with ataxia, which means they had trouble coordinating their movements and walking normally, were studied to see if smartphone sensors could help diagnose this condition. Researchers compared the walking patterns of 23 ataxic dogs to 55 healthy dogs using data collected from a smartphone placed on the dogs' backs. The results showed that a specific machine learning technique could accurately tell the difference between healthy dogs and those with ataxia 95% of the time. This suggests that smartphone apps could be useful for diagnosing ataxia in dogs and monitoring their treatment progress.
People also search for: dog ataxia symptoms Ā· how to diagnose dog ataxia Ā· smartphone app for dog movement tracking
Abstract
Ataxia is an impairment of the coordination of movement or the interaction of associated muscles, accompanied by a disturbance of the gait pattern. Diagnosis of this clinical sign, and evaluation of its severity is usually done using subjective scales during neurological examination. In this exploratory study we investigated if inertial sensors in a smart phone (3 axes of accelerometer and 3 axes of gyroscope) can be used to detect ataxia. The setting involved inertial sensor data collected by smartphone placed on the dog's back while walking in a straight line. A total of 770 walking sessions were evaluated comparing the gait of 55 healthy dogs to the one of 23 dogs with ataxia. Different machine learning techniques were used with the K-nearest neighbors technique reaching 95% accuracy in discriminating between a healthy control group and ataxic dogs, indicating potential use for smartphone apps for canine ataxia diagnosis and monitoring of treatment effect.
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Search related cases āOriginal publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35990267/