[Abstract Title]. - Society for Neuroscience

1 Ctr. Neurosci Studies, 2 Dept. of Anat. and Cell Biol., 3 Sch. of Med., 4 Sch. of Computing, 5 Sch.
of Rehabil. Therapy, Queen's Univ., Kingston, ON, Canada; 6 Dept. of Physical Med. and
Rehabil., St. Mary‟s of the Lake Hosp. and Queen's Univ., Kingston, ON, Canada
Abstract: Clinical assessments are important for detecting sensory and motor deficits in stroke
patients, but most tests for evaluating limb position sense are not objective, quantifiable, and/or
reliable. To address this need, we have developed a novel test of arm position sense using robotic
technology (KINARM). While the subjects‟ arms and hands are occluded from vision, one arm is
passively moved by the robot to one of nine spatial locations in the horizontal plane. The
subjects then actively move their other arm to the mirror location in space. Matching
performance of forty stroke subjects was compared with fifty age-matched controls by
quantifying the Cartesian hand positions at the end of each trial. The position of the passive hand
was first mirrored across the x coordinate, thereby permitting us to compare the actual (active)
and desired (passive) hand positions. Three quantitative measures of matching performance were
subsequently calculated: 1) systematic shifts between active and passive hand positions, 2) trialto-trial
variability of the active hand, and 3) contraction/expansion of the overall spatial area
spanned by the active hand. Compared to control subjects, approximately two thirds of leftaffected
and one third of right-affected patients displayed larger systematic shifts, greater
variability, or increased contraction/expansion. Similar performance was observed whether their
affected or unaffected arm was employed as the active arm. Furthermore, test-retest experiments,
carried out by two different assessors, revealed that each measure displayed excellent inter-rater
reliability despite low accordance with a common clinical evaluation (thumb localization test).
These results suggest that robotic assessment is potentially valuable for assessing deficits in limb
position sense in stroke patients. They also indicate that the right hemisphere may make a greater
contribution to limb position sense.
Disclosures: T.M. Herter , None; S.P. Dukelow, None; K. Moore, None; M. Demers,
None; H. Bretzke, None; J.I. Glasgow, None; K.E. Norman, None; S.D. Bagg, None; S.H.
Scott, SHS is associated with BKIN Technologies which commercializes the robotic technology
used in this experiment., E. Ownership Interest (stock, stock options, patent or other intellectual
property).
Poster
272. Kinematics and EMG: Diseases
Time: Sunday, November 16, 2008, 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Program#/Poster#: 272.15/II14
Topic: D.12.b. Diseases
Support: NSERC