GaitScan is a component of our NeurodegenScan Suite and meets the needs for gait analysis of animals. Gait analysis allows highly sensitive, noninvasive detection and evaluation of many pathophysiological conditions, such as those occurring in Spinal Cord Injury, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, ALS, arthritis, pain, neuromuscular and skeletal muscle diseases.
GaitScan system takes video of animal (mouse or rat) running either on a transparent belt treadmill or on a clear free‐walk runway as input. The video of the ventral view (underside view) of the animal is obtained using a high‐ speed digital camera and each video capture can be 20 seconds (or even more when used with specialized fast hard drive architecture) giving a multitude of stride samples in just one trial. The video essentially captures the foot prints of the animal as they walk/run on the treadmill or the runway device. GaitScan software can work with videos taken from any treadmill or runway device that allows the capture of its footprints on any video capturing hardware system with a high‐speed camera.
GaitScan can reliably analyze the video, and determine various characteristic parameters that are related to the pathophysiological conditions. These parameters include the stance time (paw on the belt), the swing time (paw in the air), total stride time, stride length, foot contact area size, foot pressure (measured using color intensity levels), body‐foot spacing distance (distances between body and feet), foot spacing distances (distance between various feet), running speed, stride frequencies, foot coupling or coordination measures (in‐phase or out‐of‐phase gait patterns of feet), and
Foot Print Analysis related measures such as foot print placement rotation angle with body and toe spread factors (splay). Also calculated are brake time (early part of stance until the paw reaches maximum contact) and propel time (latter portion of stance when the paw is propelling the body. GaitScan also provides Whole Body Movement Information, including information about Body Rotation during walking, Body Shifting (lateral and longitudinal whole body movements) during walking. Body Support information including measures for fraction of time when zero, one, two, three or all four feet are on floor while walking are also provided.
GaitScan outputs the detailed results of these parameters from analysis into Microsoft Excel files and gives statistical results to meet requirements in the research. Advanced functionalities such as batch mode analysis, group export, direct analysis of AVI captured files, and post‐hoc conversion to compressed MPEG videos to save disk‐space are available. A sample screenshot of the GaitScan software is shown below. The stride data is shown on the right for each foot individually. The results are updated as the analysis takes place.
GaitScan includes several new features – a) Ability to measure and display Pressure of a foot during contact with floor; b) Ability to automatically detect and delete outliers as well as portions of the video that are not worthy of analysis, and c) ability to view and export the Ink‐Pad like image that shows the placement positions of the various feet.
This product is protected by US Patent # 8,514,236