ASSESSOR (visuAl aSSESSment Of exeRcise tolerance)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Measurement of claudication distance in patients with peripheral arterial disease using Google Maps Imagery (Google Street ViewTM). Short title/acronym: ASSESSOR-PAD.
IRAS ID
312583
Contact name
Maciej Juszczak
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Newcastle University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 31 days
Research summary
Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a common condition where a build-up of fatty deposits in the arteries restricts blood supply to the leg muscles. The main symptom for PAD is intermittent claudication, this is when patients experience a painful cramping most commonly in the calf, which is relieved by rest. The distance and time to the limiting symptoms is reproducible when walking on a level surface. Therefore, patients tend to remember key landmarks that they can walk between before experiencing these claudication symptoms.
Establishing the claudication distance during clinical assessment in practice is usually taken through patients being encouraged to estimate their claudication distance, which is reported as self-reported in the patients’ clinical notes. However, the accuracy of this distance based on self-reporting estimation is poor.
In clinical settings, a corridor walking test can be used to estimate the claudication distance in a more accurate way. This is when the patients are asked to walk along a corridor with the distance and time that they develop claudication symptoms being recorded. However, this test is not always possible to complete in a vascular assessment due to lack of time, space, and staff.
We propose that using google maps street view can be an effective way of estimating claudication distance through asking patients to recall common landmarks in the areas of where they live to calculate the distance, they are able to walk between these before experiencing claudication symptoms.
The projects’ main purpose is to assess the accuracy of using google maps street view for the assessment of claudication distance in patients with PAD, when compared to the distances measured on a corridor walking test. We would like to find out how feasible using google maps street view would be in terms of patient and staff satisfaction, time consumption and resource availability.REC name
London - South East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/PR/1509
Date of REC Opinion
12 Dec 2022
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion