Abstract
The purpose of this study was to develop a motion analysis protocol that allows the simultaneous assessment of all hand and finger joint movements. The objective was to demonstrate repeatability for future clinical applications in functional assessments. This study includes selection of marker positions, movement tasks, kinematic approaches and a comparison of the two most commonly used finger marker sets. By using a test–retest measurement of the range of motion in twenty healthy volunteers, the repeatability of the developed protocol was validated. Estimated errors of the presented method ranged from 1.2° to 6.4°. Finger joint angles derived from the marker set with two markers per segment showed better repeatability (3.7°) than with markers located on the joints (5.1°). Given the high repeatability found, the presented method appears to be suitable for clinical applications. For the fingers, measurement repeatability can be improved by using at least two markers per segment. Within this study, advanced kinematic approaches, such as functional determination of joint centers and axes, are applied to the analysis of hand movements. The provided standard values and estimate of the minimal detectable differences provide a valuable basis for meaningful data interpretation and may be used for future comparison with other protocols.
Highlights
In recent years, three-dimensional (3D) motion analysis has proven to be a powerful tool to quantitatively assess movement in all degrees of freedom [1] and the fast progress in resolution and accuracy has resulted in improved measurement of fine motor movements, such as those involving the hand and fingers [2]
Complementary to a previous study, showing that joint angles derived from FM2 are more similar to FM3 compared to measurements with FM1 [10], we found that FM2 outperforms FM1 in range of motion (ROM) repeatability
This study provides a motion analysis protocol, which allows a simultaneous kinematic analysis of all joints of the fingers and hand, with its focus lying on the repeatability of the method
Summary
Three-dimensional (3D) motion analysis has proven to be a powerful tool to quantitatively assess movement in all degrees of freedom [1] and the fast progress in resolution and accuracy has resulted in improved measurement of fine motor movements, such as those involving the hand and fingers [2]. The area of hand analysis is yet in its infancy and the current lack of standardization in human hand motion capture [3,4,5] has been shown to impede the comparison of upper extremity kinematics between different studies. Model calibration including the joint coordinate systems (JCS), marker placement and kinematic estimation appear to be the four main problems in this research area [3,6]. The four most common, and controversially discussed, marker placements for the fingers are currently as follows [5,8,10]: One marker per segment—linear placement on the joint head (FM1); Two markers per segment—linear placement proximally and distally on the segment (FM2); Three markers per segment—noncollinear triangular-shaped placement (FM3a); Rigid marker cluster consisting of three noncollinear markers fixed on a base (FM3b)
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