Friedreich's ataxia is the most common autosomal recessive form of neurodegenerative ataxia. We present a longitudinal study on the gait pattern of children and adolescents affected by Friedreich's ataxia using Gait Analysis and the Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (SARA). We assessed the spectrum of changes over 12 months of the gait characteristics and the relationship between clinical and instrumental evaluations. We enrolled 11 genetically confirmed patients affected by Friedreich's ataxia in this study together with 13 normally developing age-matched subjects. Eight patients completed a 12-month follow-up under the same protocol. By comparing the gait parameters of Friedreich's ataxia with the control group, we found significant differences for some relevant indexes. In particular, the increased knee and ankle extension in stance revealed a peculiar biomechanical pattern, which correlated reliably with SARA Total, Gait and Sitting scores.
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