Abstract
Background Quantitative assessment of motor function is extremely important for poststroke patients as it can be used to develop personalized treatment strategies. This study aimed to propose an evaluation method for upper limb motor function in stroke patients. Methods Thirty-four stroke survivors and twenty-five age-matched healthy volunteers as the control group were recruited for this study. Inertial sensor data and surface electromyography (sEMG) signals were collected from the upper limb during voluntary upward reaching. Five features included max shoulder joint angle, peak and average speeds, torso balance calculated from inertial sensor data, and muscle synergy similarity extracted from sEMG data by the nonnegative matrix factorization algorithm. Meanwhile, the Fugl–Meyer score of each patient was graded by professional rehabilitation therapist. Results Statistically significant differences were observed among severe, mild-to-moderate, and control group of five features (p ≤ 0.001). The features varied as the level of upper limb motor function changes since these features significantly correlated with the Fugl–Meyer assessment scale (p ≤ 0.001). Moreover, the Bland–Altman method was conducted and showed high consistency between the evaluation method of five features and Fugl–Meyer scale. Therefore, the five features proposed in this paper can quantitatively evaluate the motor function of stroke patients which is very useful in the rehabilitation process.
Highlights
Stroke is a global disease with high mortality and high disability caused by motor cortical damage [1]
It can be seen that the severe patient has the lowest range of shoulder joint angle and most vibrant trend compared with the mild-tomoderate one and the control and takes longest time to arrive the peak range in reaching which means he has lowest speed of the upper arm
We can see that stroke patients usually have a narrower range of shoulder joint angle of the affected arm due to hemiplegia. erefore, the max shoulder angle is used to measure the shoulder range of motion of each subject
Summary
Stroke is a global disease with high mortality and high disability caused by motor cortical damage [1]. E FM scale was developed based on Brunnstrom approach, where patients completed a series of motions following instructions, and scored by physicians according to the completion degree of the movements [9]. Us, it would be helpful to develop a quantitative evaluation method with respect to the specific motion of poststroke patients that can reveal the patients’ deficits and provide advice on the rehabilitation process. Is study aimed to propose an evaluation method for upper limb motor function in stroke patients. E features varied as the level of upper limb motor function changes since these features significantly correlated with the Fugl–Meyer assessment scale (p ≤ 0.001). Erefore, the five features proposed in this paper can quantitatively evaluate the motor function of stroke patients which is very useful in the rehabilitation process The Bland–Altman method was conducted and showed high consistency between the evaluation method of five features and Fugl–Meyer scale. erefore, the five features proposed in this paper can quantitatively evaluate the motor function of stroke patients which is very useful in the rehabilitation process
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