Biomechanical analysis of body movements of myoelectric prosthesis users during standardized clinical tests
File(s)TBME-00145-2022_Publication_ready.pdf (1.48 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Objective: The objective clinical evaluation of user's capabilities to handle their prosthesis is done using various tests which primarily focus on the task completion speed and do not explicitly account for the potential presence of compensatory motions. Given that the excessive body compensation is a common indicator of inadequate prosthesis control, tests which include subjective observations on the quality of performed motions have been introduced. However, these metrics are then influenced by the examiner's opinions, skills, and training making them harder to standardize across patient pools and compare across different prosthetic technologies. Here we aim to objectively quantify the severity of body compensations present in myoelectric prosthetic hand users and evaluate the extent to which traditional objective clinical scores are still able to capture them. Methods: We have instructed 9 below-elbow prosthesis users and 9 able-bodied participants to complete three established objective clinical tests: Box-and-Blocks-Test, Clothespin-Relocation-Test, and Southampton-Hand-Assessment-Procedure. During all tests, upper-body kinematics has been recorded. Results: While the analysis showed that there are some correlations between the achieved clinical scores and the individual body segment travel distances and average speeds, there were only weak correlations between the clinical scores and the observed ranges of motion. At the same time, the compensations were observed in all prosthesis users and, for the most part, they were substantial across the tests. Conclusion: The sole reliance on the currently available objective clinical assessment methods seems inadequate as the compensatory movements are prominent in prosthesis users and yet not sufficiently accounted for.
Date Issued
2023-03-01
Date Acceptance
2022-08-25
Citation
IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 2023, 70 (3), pp.789-799
ISSN
0018-9294
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Start Page
789
End Page
799
Journal / Book Title
IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering
Volume
70
Issue
3
Copyright Statement
© 2022 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.
Identifier
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9869320
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2022-08-29