Background: Although robotic therapy is at the forefront of upper limb rehabilitation, there is limited information about the importance of selecting age-matched subjects to evaluate recovery of arm movement during rehabilitation.Objective: This study aims to quantify differences in the arm motion of healthy children and adults when they interact with a planar robot, in order to determine whether an age-matched control group is necessary in clinical studies involving pediatric patients.Methods: Ten children (aged 7 to 10 years) and ten adults (aged 23 to 25 years) performed, at self-selected speed and accuracy, planar-reaching and circle-drawing movements with a robotic device. We analyzed the motor performances for the two groups quantifying the participants' dexterity in completing two chosen tasks. The measurement of the entire upper limb was obtained by merging the data provided by the robot with that of an optical tracking system.Results: Children drew circles with less smoothness than adults but with the same accuracy and joint coordination. During planar reaching task, children optimized only the coordination but performed the movement with less accuracy and smoothness than adults.Conclusions: Our findings provide evidence that age-matched healthy children should be used to quantify the recovery of robot-mediated therapy in children with upper limb impairments.

中文翻译：

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使用机器人康复设备量化伸手和画圆时与年龄相关的差异

背景：尽管机器人疗法是上肢康复的最前沿，但关于选择年龄匹配的受试者来评估康复期间手臂运动恢复的重要性的信息有限。目的：本研究旨在量化健康人手臂运动的差异方法：十名儿童（7至10岁）和十名成人（23至25岁）与儿童和成人在与平面机器人互动时确定年龄匹配的对照组是否在涉及儿科患者的临床研究中是必需的。年）以自动选择的速度和精度通过机器人设备执行了平面触及画圆运动。我们分析了两组的运动表现，量化了参与者在完成两项选定任务中的灵活性。通过将机器人提供的数据与光学跟踪系统的数据进行合并，获得整个上肢的测量结果。结果：儿童画出的圆比成人少滑，但精度和关节协调性相同。结论：我们的发现提供了证据，表明年龄匹配的健康儿童应被用于量化上肢高位儿童的机器人介导治疗的恢复情况肢体损伤。