50 likes | 62 Views
This study aims to develop a task set suitable for evaluating rehabilitation interventions that restore arm/hand function in individuals with high tetraplegia. The research compiled a comprehensive list of daily activities and selected a small set of five simple tasks that encompass all important movement components. These tasks serve as a basis for evaluating the technical performance and efficacy of upper-limb rehabilitation interventions.
E N D
Standard task set for evaluating rehabilitation interventions for individuals with arm paralysis Andrew S. Cornwell, PhD; James Y. Liao, MS; Anne M. Bryden, OTR; Robert F. Kirsch, PhD
Aim • Develop task set suitable for development and preclinical and clinical assessments of rehabilitation technologies that restore arm/hand function in people with high tetraplegia. • Relevance • Many functional assessment tools are not suitable because they evaluate unrealistic functional goals for people with upper-limb paralysis, even those who have state-of-the-art functional electrical stimulation (FES) systems.
Methods • Compiled comprehensive list of activities of daily living from literature, patient surveys, rehabilitation professionals, and FES users. • Eliminated tasks not feasible for individual with state-of-the-art intervention for high tetraplegia. • Classified feasible tasks into common set of movement segments and counted frequency of movement segment types in each given movement. • Selected small set of 5 simple tasks that encompasses all important movement components.
Results • Functional task list: 1. Touching face. 2. Drinking from mug with straw. 3. Eating with fingers from plate. 4. Retrieving object from countertop. 5. Pressing elevator button.
Conclusions • We created set of functional tasks that can be used to evaluate interventions (such as FES) for individuals with high tetraplegia and other severe paralytic disorders. • These tasks form basis for setting design specifications and evaluating technical performance and efficacy of upper-limb rehabilitation interventions.