Assessment of bimanual proprioception during an orientation matching task with a physically coupled object

Galofaro, Elisa; Ballardini, Giulia; Boggini, Silvia; Foti, Federica; Nisky, Ilana; Casadio, Maura

doi:10.1109/icorr.2019.8779415

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Other studies confirmed that proprioceptive acuity is highly influenced by the configuration of the tested limb: performance in joint position matching tasks is worse for targets located in a distal portion of the arm workspace [16,41,48,49] rather than for those tested in proximal configurations [15,50,51].…”

Section: Proprioceptive Error Across Upper Limb Jointsmentioning

confidence: 77%

“…The "Error Bias" [4] evaluates the overshoot and undershoot during the matching task by considering the signed error between the presented proprioceptive target location (ϑ target ) and the final position (ϑ i ) at the end of each trial [41]. For consistent interpretation, we transformed the signed Error Bias to a measure of a signed overshoot:…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Three-Dimensional Assessment of Upper Limb Proprioception via a Wearable Exoskeleton

et al. 2021

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Proprioception—the sense of body segment’s position and movement—plays a crucial role in human motor control, integrating the sensory information necessary for the correct execution of daily life activities. Despite scientific evidence recognizes that several neurological diseases hamper proprioceptive encoding with consequent inability to correctly perform movements, proprioceptive assessment in clinical settings is still limited to standard scales. Literature on physiology of upper limb’s proprioception is mainly focused on experimental approaches involving planar setups, while the present work provides a novel paradigm for assessing proprioception during single—and multi-joint matching tasks in a three-dimensional workspace. To such extent, a six-degrees of freedom exoskeleton, ALEx-RS (Arm Light Exoskeleton Rehab Station), was used to evaluate 18 healthy subjects’ abilities in matching proprioceptive targets during combined single and multi-joint arm’s movements: shoulder abduction/adduction, shoulder flexion/extension, and elbow flexion/extension. Results provided evidence that proprioceptive abilities depend on the number of joints simultaneously involved in the task and on their anatomical location, since muscle spindles work along their preferred direction, modulating the streaming of sensory information accordingly. These findings suggest solutions for clinical sensorimotor evaluation after neurological disease, where assessing proprioceptive deficits can improve the recovery path and complement the rehabilitation outcomes.

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Section: Proprioceptive Error Across Upper Limb Jointsmentioning

confidence: 77%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Three-Dimensional Assessment of Upper Limb Proprioception via a Wearable Exoskeleton

et al. 2021

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“…The device employed in this experiment, named Bisbox, is a sensorized rectangular box, a new and lighter (0.8 kg) version of the prototype described in (Galofaro et al, 2019). The dimensions of the box were 15×35×25 cm (height × width × depth).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bimanual Isometric Force Control in Young and Older Adults

Galofaro

Valè

Ballardini

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Background: Several activities of daily living require bimanual force coordination during interactions with objects. However, while the decline of sensory perception and motor functions with age have been largely studied, the impact of aging on the bilateral control of isometric forces is less investigated. This study aims at providing a comprehensive description of the bimanual force control strategies adopted by unimpaired young and older adults in an isometric force tracking task. Methods: Participants were required to apply with the two hands simultaneously the same amount of isometric force by pushing on two decoupled plates, which appeared as two lateral faces of a box on a table. The total force had to match a force profile composed of time-variant and constant phases, reaching three target force levels: low, medium, and high. Visual feedback was provided only for the total force, but not for the force exerted by each hand. Thirty-one volunteers participated in the study: 15 of age 25±1 std years and 16 of age 77±7std years. Differences between the two groups were tested with repeated measure ANOVA with the group as a between-subjects factor. Results: The older group had higher matching errors and more variable force profiles compared to the younger group. Most of the older participants also undershot the highest force level. Both groups had more difficulty matching a time-variant than a constant force profile, and this difficulty was higher for the older group. As for differences between the force applied by the two hands, the older group had lower lateral symmetry, although the hand applying more force varied across participants and target forces. For the lower target level, the amount of total force applied by the left hand correlated with its variability expressed by the coefficient of variation. Conclusions: This study provides the first proof of concept that the proposed paradigm, based on a low-cost sensorized device, can be used to characterize and quantify age-related differences in bimanual isometric force control. The device and the paradigm can be used for assessment in clinical settings and then explored as a possible rehabilitative tool.

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“…It indicates the subject's tendency to overshoot (positive error bias ) or undershoot (negative error bias ) the target after the Matching Phase . For a consistent interpretation, we transformed the signed error bias to a measure of a signed overshoot, error bias OS (Galofaro et al, 2019 ):…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Robotic Assessment of Wrist Proprioception During Kinaesthetic Perturbations: A Neuroergonomic Approach

et al. 2021

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Position sense refers to an aspect of proprioception crucial for motor control and learning. The onset of neurological diseases can damage such sensory afference, with consequent motor disorders dramatically reducing the associated recovery process. In regular clinical practice, assessment of proprioceptive deficits is run by means of clinical scales which do not provide quantitative measurements. However, existing robotic solutions usually do not involve multi-joint movements but are mostly applied to a single proximal or distal joint. The present work provides a testing paradigm for assessing proprioception during coordinated multi-joint distal movements and in presence of kinaesthetic perturbations: we evaluated healthy subjects' ability to match proprioceptive targets along two of the three wrist's degrees of freedom, flexion/extension and abduction/adduction. By introducing rotations along the pronation/supination axis not involved in the matching task, we tested two experimental conditions, which differed in terms of the temporal imposition of the external perturbation: in the first one, the disturbance was provided after the presentation of the proprioceptive target, while in the second one, the rotation of the pronation/ supination axis was imposed during the proprioceptive target presentation. We investigated if (i) the amplitude of the perturbation along the pronation/supination would lead to proprioceptive miscalibration; (ii) the encoding of proprioceptive target, would be influenced by the presentation sequence between the target itself and the rotational disturbance. Eighteen participants were tested by means of a haptic neuroergonomic wrist device: our findings provided evidence that the order of disturbance presentation does not alter proprioceptive acuity. Yet, a further effect has been noticed: proprioception is highly anisotropic and dependent on perturbation amplitude. Unexpectedly, the configuration of the forearm highly influences sensory feedbacks, and significantly alters subjects' performance in matching the proprioceptive targets, defining portions of the wrist workspace where kinaesthetic and proprioceptive acuity are more sensitive. This finding may suggest solutions and applications in multiple fields: from general haptics where, knowing how wrist configuration influences proprioception, might suggest new neuroergonomic solutions in device design, to clinical evaluation after neurological damage, where accurately assessing proprioceptive deficits can dramatically complement regular therapy for a better prediction of the recovery path.

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Assessment of bimanual proprioception during an orientation matching task with a physically coupled object

Cited by 4 publications

References 26 publications

Three-Dimensional Assessment of Upper Limb Proprioception via a Wearable Exoskeleton

Three-Dimensional Assessment of Upper Limb Proprioception via a Wearable Exoskeleton

Bimanual Isometric Force Control in Young and Older Adults

Robotic Assessment of Wrist Proprioception During Kinaesthetic Perturbations: A Neuroergonomic Approach

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