Walking Speed is Correlated with the Isokinetic Muscular Strength of the Knee in Patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth Type 1A

Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1A (CMT1A) is the most common hereditary neuropathy. Affected individuals have a distal motor deficit, initially affecting the lower limbs and impairing walking performance. Isokinetic dynamometry can be used to objectively assess muscle strength of patients with neuromuscular disorders. No studies have evaluated the effect of muscle strength deficits of knee extensors and flexors on walking parameters for patients with CMT1A. The purpose of this study was to determine correlations between the isokinetic muscular strength (IMS) of knee flexors (KFs) and knee extensors (KEs) and walk parameters for patients with CMT1A. IMS of the knee was assessed on an isokinetic dynamometer (Cybex®) and walking by instrumented walkway analysis (GaitRite®). We included 33 patients (23 females, mean age 46.7±13.3 years, mean body mass index 25.7±4.6 kg/m2). We found a correlation between walking speed and IMS of KEs for the entire population and between walking speed and IMS of KEs and KFs for patients under 50 years of age. Isokinetic dynamometry can provide objective measures of knee muscle strength, which is correlated with walking speed but not cadence or step/stride length of patients with CMT. Related author: Pr Emmanuel Coudeyre, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital, Hôpital Nord, route de Chateaugay, BP 30056, 63 118 Cébazat, France, Tel: + 33 4 73 75 09 00 Fax: + 33 4 73 75 09 01, Email: ecoudeyre@chu-clermontferrand.fr Conflict of Interest: Each individual named as an author meets the uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to biomedical Journals criteria for authorship. All the authors declare do not have any conflict of interest to declare. Funding: The authors sincerely thank Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital for funding (2012). Length of manuscript: 186 words for the abstract, 1743 for the main text, 2 tables/figures and 24 references. Copyright © 2018 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

https://ift.tt/2CJuTUD