Blink rate in ALS

ISSN 2167-8421 print/ISSN 2167-9223 online © 2013 Informa Healthcare DOI: 10.3109/21678421.2012.729217 on any medication that could cause autonomic features including dry eye. All patients with ALS were taking riluzole. The same room, lighting, and ambient temperature levels were used for all cases and controls. While watching the 3-min video the participants ’ eyes were recorded. Blink rate was calculated on an anonymized series of cases and controls. Ethics approval was granted by the local committee. Over 90% (48) of patients had been cognitively tested as part of a longitudinal study of cognition (9). The status of the recently described C9orf72 repeat expansion, which is associated with almost 50% of familial ALS cases, was also known (10,11). A positive repeat expansion in C9orf72 is said to be present if 30 or more repeats are observed on reverse prime PCR analysis with capillary electrophoresis. Statistical analysis was carried out using means for normally distributed variables and medians values for those values that were not normally distributed. Comparative tests were made using parametric and non-parametric tests where appropriate. Analysis was carried out using SPSS 18.0.

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