Evolution of movement smoothness and submovement patterns in persons with stroke

Smoothness is characteristic of coordinated human movements, and stroke patients' movements seem to grow more smooth with recovery. A robotic therapy device was used to analyze five different measures of movement smoothness in the hemiparetic arm of thirty-one patients recovering from stroke. Four of the five metrics showed general increases in smoothness for the entire patient population. However according to the fifth metric, the movements of patients with recent stroke grew less smooth over the course of therapy. This pattern was reproduced in a computer simulation of recovery based on submovement blending, suggesting that progressive blending of submovements underlies stroke recovery. Submovements are hypothesized fundamental building blocks of human movement. All available evidence is consistent with their existence and no other theory has been proposed that can fully account for observed phenomena in human movement. However, there is no obvious way to prove their existence. Nevertheless, repeatedly successful decomposition of movement data into submovements may produce sufficient evidence to make the question moot. The component submovements of stroke patients' point-to-point movements were estimated using a novel submovement extraction algorithm. Over the course of therapy, patients' submovements tended to increase in peak speed and duration.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2002

Author dc:creator

• Rohrer, Brandon Robinson, 1974-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Neville Hogan.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/29256

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/29256