Abstract
The ultimate goal of any upper-limb neurorehabilitation procedure is to improve upper-limb functioning in daily life. While clinic-based assessments provide an assessment of what a patient can do, they do not completely reflect what a patient does in his/her daily life. The use of compensatory strategies such as the use of the less affected upper-limb or excessive use of trunk in daily life is a common behavioral pattern seen in patients with hemiparesis. To this end, there has been an increasing interest in the use of wearable sensors to objectively assess upper-limb functioning. This paper presents a framework for assessing upper-limb functioning using sensors by providing: (a) a set of definitions of important constructs associated with upper-limb functioning; (b) different visualization methods for evaluating upper-limb functioning; and (c) two new measures for quantifying how much an upper-limb is used and the relative bias in their use. The demonstration of some of these components is presented using data collected from inertial measurement units from a previous study. The proposed framework can help guide the future technical and clinical work in this area to realize valid, objective, and robust tools for assessing upper-limb functioning. This will in turn drive the refinement and standardization of the assessment of upper-limb functioning.
Highlights
After neurological injury, individuals require physical rehabilitation to promote recovery, minimize disability, and maximize independent living
Average upper-limb activity Ai of the upper-limb i can be captured by the product of Ui and intensity of use (Ii), which quantifies the co-variation of these two factors
Recent work on estimating movement smoothness with IMUs has shown that the spectral arc length (SPARC) measure cannot be used with acceleration data, even though the SPARC has been shown to be a good measure of movement smoothness when applied on movement velocity (Melendez-Calderon et al, 2021)
Summary
Individuals require physical rehabilitation to promote recovery, minimize disability, and maximize independent living. There are four inter-related aspects that need consideration to build a comprehensive picture of upper-limb functioning in daily life: (a) amount of use (duration and/or intensity), (b) hand preference, (c) ability and capability, and (d) quality of movement They can be posed as the following questions of interest to a clinician:. There is currently little work on using sensor data for determining the nature of tasks/activities and quantifying the quality of movements performed during daily life in neurorehabilitation application These aspects are likely to be explored in the coming years with the increasing interest in this area, the availability of more data and sophisticated data analysis methods. We bring to light some important issues that should be addressed in the coming years for making pervasive, sensor-based objective assessment of upper-limb functioning a clinical reality
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
