Video-Based Assessment of Bradykinesia in Ataxia-Teleangiectasia Patients

The objective evaluation of movement disorders commonly due to neurological diseases represents a clinical challenge, since traditional diagnostic methods rely on the experience of specialized medical personnel. Recent advancements in video-based technologies have opened new avenues for non-invasive, continuous, and objective monitoring of motor symptoms in both clinical and real-world settings. In this paper, a novel video-based method to assess bradykinesia (i.e., slow and irregular movements) in children affected by a rare neurological disorder, known as Ataxia-Telangiectasia (AT), is presented. Motion features of interest are extracted from videos of patients' hands and healthy subjects' hands performing the clinical task known as Finger Tapping (FT). The obtained results are compared in terms of speed and regularity, in order to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method.