title: Kinematic measures of Arm-trunk movements during unilateral and bilateral reaching predict clinically important change in perceived arm use in daily activities after intensive stroke rehabilitation.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Kinematic analysis has been used to objectively evaluate movement patterns, quality, and strategies during reaching tasks. However, no study has investigated whether kinematic variables during unilateral and bilateral reaching tasks predict a patient's perceived arm use during activities of daily living (ADL) after an intensive intervention. Therefore, this study investigated whether kinematic measures during unilateral and bilateral reaching tasks before an intervention can predict clinically meaningful improvement in perceived arm use during ADL after intensive poststroke rehabilitation.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study was a secondary analysis of 120 subjects with chronic stroke who received 90-120 min of intensive intervention every weekday for 3-4 weeks. Reaching kinematics during unilateral and bilateral tasks and the Motor Activity Log (MAL) were evaluated before and after the intervention.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Kinematic variables explained 22 and 11 % of the variance in actual amount of use (AOU) and quality of movement (QOM), respectively, of MAL improvement during unilateral reaching tasks. Kinematic variables also explained 21 and 31 % of the variance in MAL-AOU and MAL-QOM, respectively, during bilateral reaching tasks. Selected kinematic variables, including endpoint variables, trunk involvement, and joint recruitment and interjoint coordination, were significant predictors for improvement in perceived arm use during ADL (P < 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Arm-trunk kinematics may be used to predict clinically meaningful improvement in perceived arm use during ADL after intensive rehabilitation. Involvement of interjoint coordination and trunk control variables as predictors in bilateral reaching models indicates that a high level of motor control (i.e., multijoint coordination) and trunk stability may be important in obtaining treatment gains in arm use, especially for bilateral daily activities, in intensive rehabilitation after stroke.
authors.affiliation: School of Occupational Therapy, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. hlchen@ntu.edu.tw.|Division of Occupational Therapy, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan. hlchen@ntu.edu.tw.
authors.forename: Hao-ling
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: School of Occupational Therapy, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. kehchunglin@ntu.edu.tw.|Division of Occupational Therapy, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan. kehchunglin@ntu.edu.tw.
authors.forename: Keh-chung
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Department of Occupational Therapy and Graduate Institute of Behavioral Sciences, College of Medicine, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan. d93428004@ntu.edu.tw.
authors.forename: Rong-jiuan
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Liing
authors.affiliation: Department of Occupational Therapy and Graduate Institute of Behavioral Sciences, College of Medicine, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan. cywu@mail.cgu.edu.tw.|Healthy Ageing Research Center, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan. cywu@mail.cgu.edu.tw.
authors.forename: Ching-yi
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taoyuan, Taiwan. ccl1374@adm.cgmh.com.tw.
authors.forename: Chia-ling
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D001132:Arm; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D057566:Self Report; D000071939:Stroke Rehabilitation; D060726:Torso