title: Normative Data for an Instrumental Assessment of the Upper-Limb Functionality.
abstract: Upper-limb movement analysis is important to monitor objectively rehabilitation interventions, contributing to improving the overall treatments outcomes. Simple, fast, easy-to-use, and applicable methods are required to allow routinely functional evaluation of patients with different pathologies and clinical conditions. This paper describes the Reaching and Hand-to-Mouth Evaluation Method, a fast procedure to assess the upper-limb motor control and functional ability, providing a set of normative data from 42 healthy subjects of different ages, evaluated for both the dominant and the nondominant limb motor performance. Sixteen of them were reevaluated after two weeks to perform test-retest reliability analysis. Data were clustered into three subgroups of different ages to test the method sensitivity to motor control differences. Experimental data show notable test-retest reliability in all tasks. Data from older and younger subjects show significant differences in the measures related to the ability for coordination thus showing the high sensitivity of the method to motor control differences. The presented method, provided with control data from healthy subjects, appears to be a suitable and reliable tool for the upper-limb functional assessment in the clinical environment.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Industrial Technologies and Automation (ITIA), National Research Council (CNR), Via Bassini 15, 20133 Milan, Italy ; Villa Beretta Rehabilitation Center, Via Nazario Sauro 17, 23845 Costa Masnaga, Lecco, Italy ; University of Brescia, Via Branze 38, 25123 Brescia, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Caimmi
authors.affiliation: Villa Beretta Rehabilitation Center, Via Nazario Sauro 17, 23845 Costa Masnaga, Lecco, Italy.
authors.forename: Eleonora
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Guanziroli
authors.affiliation: Institute of Industrial Technologies and Automation (ITIA), National Research Council (CNR), Via Bassini 15, 20133 Milan, Italy ; University of Brescia, Via Branze 38, 25123 Brescia, Italy.
authors.forename: Matteo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Malosio
authors.affiliation: Institute of Industrial Technologies and Automation (ITIA), National Research Council (CNR), Via Bassini 15, 20133 Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pedrocchi
authors.affiliation: Institute of Industrial Technologies and Automation (ITIA), National Research Council (CNR), Via Bassini 15, 20133 Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Federico
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Vicentini
authors.affiliation: Institute of Industrial Technologies and Automation (ITIA), National Research Council (CNR), Via Bassini 15, 20133 Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Lorenzo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Molinari Tosatti
authors.affiliation: Villa Beretta Rehabilitation Center, Via Nazario Sauro 17, 23845 Costa Masnaga, Lecco, Italy.
authors.forename: Franco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Molteni
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D026741:Physical Therapy Modalities; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D020521:Stroke / Q000503:physiopathology; D000071939:Stroke Rehabilitation; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D034941:Upper Extremity / Q000503:physiopathology*