Classification of abnormal gait patterns of poststroke hemiplegic patients in principal component analysis.

Motoya R, Yamamoto S, Naoe M, Taniguchi R, Kawahara A, Iwata T. Classification of abnormal gait patterns of poststroke hemiplegic patients in principal component analysis. Jpn J Compr Rehabil Sci 2021; 12: 70-77. Objective: The objective of this study was to classify the 10 types of characteristic abnormal gait by principal component analysis using quantitative indices of 10 types of abnormal gait. Methods: For abnormal gait pattern classification, principal component analysis was performed using the deviation values of the 10 types of abnormal gait of 90 subjects. Scatter plots of the factor loadings of the 1st and 2nd principal components of the 10 types of abnormal gait were prepared, and those arranged at near sites were grouped based on the positional relationship, through which abnormal gait patterns were classified. Results: It was suggested that abnormal gait patterns can be classified into insufficient knee flexion, hip hiking, and excessive lateral shift of the trunk over the unaffected side in the swing phase; knee extensor thrust pattern accompanying forefoot contact in the stance phase in addition to circumduction gait of the swing phase; and flexed knee gait pattern accompanying retropulsion of the hip in addition to median whip in the stance phase and excessive hip external rotation in the swing phase. Conclusions: It was clarified by these principal component analyses that information contained in the results of the 10 quantitative indices of abnormal gait of the 90 poststroke hemiplegia patients was compressed into several abnormal gait patterns. If observational abnormal gait analysis is performed after understanding this gait pattern classification, it may help improve the accuracy of gait analysis by observation.

A Thr72Ala polymorphism in the NKG2D gene is associated with early symptomatic congenital cytomegalovirus disease.

The potential risk factors for congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) infection or development of disease remain unclear. Here, we investigated the genetic polymorphisms in natural killer (NK) group 2, member D (NKG2D), an activating receptor expressed on NK cells, and in MHC class I-related chains A, the ligand of NKG2D, in 87 cCMV cases, and found that there was a significant association between cCMV disease and a single nucleotide polymorphism, Thr72Ala, in NKG2D.

Polymorphisms in TLR-2 are associated with congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection but not with congenital CMV disease.

BACKGROUND: Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is the most common cause of congenital virus infection. However, the risk factors for infection in utero and for progression to a severe clinical outcome remain uncertain. Recent studies have identified associations of specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in Toll-like receptor (TLR) genes with susceptibility to infections of some viruses and with their clinical outcome. METHODS: Genetic polymorphisms in the TLR-2, TLR-4, and TLR-9 genes were analyzed in 87 children with congenital CMV infections by the TaqMan allelic discrimination assay. The frequencies of genotypes in the general Japanese population were obtained from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) databases. Associations between the analyzed SNPs and congenital CMV infection or disease were evaluated. RESULTS: The CC genotype at SNP rs3804100 in the TLR-2 gene was significantly associated with congenital CMV infection but not with congenital CMV disease. Furthermore, the AG genotype at SNP rs1898830 in the TLR-2 gene tended to be identified less frequently in children with congenital CMV infection. There were no statistically significant associations between SNPs in the TLR-4 and TLR-9 genes and congenital CMV infection or disease. CONCLUSION: TLR-2 polymorphisms may have some association with congenital CMV infection, although the mechanism underlying this effect remains to be clarified.