The COVID-19 pandemic has forced neurologists to work differently and to transform their multiple sclerosis (MS) services they provide with the aim of reducing the need for face-2-face outpatient appointments. One issue that emerged very early on during the COVID-19 pandemic whilst using telemedicine portals to see new patients with neurological problems, assessing patients with MS with a possible relapse or simply for their routine neurological follow-up was the inability to do a neurological examination. In response to this unmet need, we developed a simple 3-stage virtual neurological examination (VirtuEx).
This microsite explains the VirtuEx, the principles behind it and how it was developed. We are validating and refining VirtuEx to make it easier and better. If you are a medical student, neurology trainee, neurologist or a healthcare professional and have ideas and want to help improve VirtuEx please contact us. We want this project to live and breathe and evolve over time with input from the wider community.
VirtuEx has been developed by Dr Ide Smets, Dr Saúl Reyes and Prof. Gavin Giovannoni from Barts and The London School of Medicine and Surgery, Queen Mary University of London. Dr Ide Smets and Dr Saúl Reyes have both been generously funded by ECTRIMS fellowships.
If you want to dive straight in, the following videos demonstrate how to do the VirtuEx. However, to derive the most information out of VirtuEx you need to familiarise yourself with the neurological examination and what needs to be done to prepare yourself and the patient to undergo a VirtuEx.