Background: Stroke is one of the main causes of disability in the world, causing loss of motor function on mainly one side of the body. A proper assessment of motor function is required to help to direct and evaluate therapy. Assessment is currently performed by therapists using observer-based standardized clinical assessment protocols. Sensor-based technologies can be used to objectively quantify the presence and severity of motor impairments in stroke patients. Methods: In this work, a minimally obstructive distributed inertial sensing system, intended to measure kinematics of the upper extremity, was developed and tested in a pilot study, where 10 chronic stroke subjects performed the arm-related tasks from the Fugl-Meyer Assessment protocol with the affected and non-affected side. Results: The pilot study showed that the developed distributed measurement system was adequately sensitive to show significant differences in stroke subjects’ arm postures between the affected and non-affected side. The presence of pathological synergies can be analysed using the measured joint angles of the upper limb segments, that describe the movement patterns of the subject. Conclusion: Features measured by the system vary from the assessed FMA-UE sub-score showing its potential to provide more detailed clinical information.

中文翻译：

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使用惯性测量装置量化中风受试者上肢的病理协同作用：一项试点研究

背景：中风是世界上导致残疾的主要原因之一，主要导致身体一侧的运动功能丧失。需要对运动功能进行适当的评估，以帮助指导和评估治疗。评估目前由治疗师使用基于观察者的标准化临床评估协议进行。基于传感器的技术可用于客观量化中风患者运动障碍的存在和严重程度。方法：在这项工作中，开发了一种用于测量上肢运动学的最小阻碍分布式惯性传感系统，并在一项试点研究中进行了测试，其中 10 名慢性中风受试者执行了 Fugl-Meyer 评估协议中与手臂相关的任务患侧和非患侧。结果：初步研究表明，开发的分布式测量系统足够敏感，可以显示中风受试者在受影响侧和未受影响侧的手臂姿势的显着差异。可以使用上肢节段的测量关节角度来分析病理协同作用的存在，该角度描述了受试者的运动模式。结论：系统测量的特征与评估的 FMA-UE 子分数不同，显示其提供更详细临床信息的潜力。