Article

Upper extremity use in daily life is a critical ingredient of
continued functional recovery after cerebral stroke. However, time-evolutions of
use-dependent motion quality are poorly understood due to limitations of existing
measurement tools. OBJECTIVE: Proof-of-concept study to determine if spectral
analyses explain the variability of known temporal kinematic movement quality
(ie, movement duration, number of peaks, jerk) for uncontrolled reach-to-grasp
tasks. METHODS: Ten individuals with chronic stroke performed unimanual
goal-directed movements using both hands, with and without task object present,
wearing accelerometers on each wrist. Temporal and spectral measures were
extracted for each gesture. The effects of performance condition on outcome
measures were determined using 2-way, within subject, hand (nonparetic vs
paretic) x object (present vs absent) analysis of variance. Regression analyses
determined if spectral measures explained the variability of the temporal
measures. RESULTS: There were main effects of hand on all 3 temporal measures and
main effects of object on movement duration and peaks. For the paretic limb,
spectral measures explain 41.2% and 51.1% of the variability in movement duration
and peaks, respectively.
For the nonparetic limb, spectral measures explain
40.1%, 42.5%, and 27.8% of the variability of movement duration, peaks, and jerk,
respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Spectral measures explain the variability of motion
efficiency and control in individuals with stroke. Signal power from 1.0 to 2.0
Hz is sensitive to changes in hand and object. Analyzing the evolution of this
measure in ambient environments may provide as yet uncharted information useful
for evaluating long-term recovery.

Langue : ANGLAIS