Submovements during reaching movements after stroke

Lucia S. Simo, Davide Piovesan, Jozsef Laczko, Claude Ghez, Robert S. Scheidt

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Neurological deficits after cerebrovascular accidents very frequently disrupt the kinematics of voluntary movements with the consequent impact in daily life activities. Robotic methodologies enable the quantitative characterization of specific control deficits needed to understand the basis of functional impairments and to design effective rehabilitation therapies. In a group of right handed chronic stroke survivors (SS) with right side hemiparesis, intact proprioception, and differing levels of motor impairment, we used a robotic manipulandum to study right arm function during discrete point-to-point reaching movements and reciprocal out-and-back movements to visual targets. We compared these movements with those of neurologically intact individuals (NI). We analyzed the presence of secondary submovements in the initial (i.e. outward) trajectory portion of the two tasks and found that the SS with severe impairment (FM < 30) presented arm submovements that differed notably not only from NI but also from those of SS with moderate arm impairment (FM 30-50). Therefore the results of this pilot study suggest that in SS arm kinematics vary significantly across differing levels of motor impairment. Our results support the development of rehabilitation therapies carefully tailored to each individual stroke survivor.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Signal Processing
  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
  • Health Informatics

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Submovements during reaching movements after stroke'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this