Inter-rater reliability of kinesthetic measurements with the KINARM robotic exoskeleton
- Jennifer A. SemrauEmail author,
- Troy M. Herter,
- Stephen H. Scott and
- Sean P. Dukelow
Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation201714:42
DOI: 10.1186/s12984-017-0260-z
© The Author(s). 2017
Received: 3 August 2016
Accepted: 16 May 2017
Published: 22 May 2017
Abstract
Background
Kinesthesia (sense of limb
movement) has been extremely difficult to measure objectively,
especially in individuals who have survived a stroke. The development of
valid and reliable measurements for proprioception is important to
developing a better understanding of proprioceptive impairments after
stroke and their impact on the ability to perform daily activities. We
recently developed a robotic task to evaluate kinesthetic deficits after
stroke and found that the majority (~60%) of stroke survivors exhibit
significant deficits in kinesthesia within the first 10 days
post-stroke. Here we aim to determine the inter-rater reliability of
this robotic kinesthetic matching task.
Methods
Twenty-five neurologically
intact control subjects and 15 individuals with first-time stroke were
evaluated on a robotic kinesthetic matching task (KIN). Subjects sat in a
robotic exoskeleton with their arms supported against gravity. In the
KIN task, the robot moved the subjects’ stroke-affected arm at a preset
speed, direction and distance. As soon as subjects felt the robot begin
to move their affected arm, they matched the robot movement with the
unaffected arm. Subjects were tested in two sessions on the KIN task:
initial session and then a second session (within an average of
18.2 ± 13.8 h of the initial session for stroke subjects), which were
supervised by different technicians. The task was performed both with
and without the use of vision in both sessions. We evaluated intra-class
correlations of spatial and temporal parameters derived from the KIN
task to determine the reliability of the robotic task.
Results
We evaluated 8 spatial and
temporal parameters that quantify kinesthetic behavior. We found that
the parameters exhibited moderate to high intra-class correlations
between the initial and retest conditions (Range, r-value = [0.53–0.97]).
Conclusions
The robotic KIN task exhibited
good inter-rater reliability. This validates the KIN task as a
reliable, objective method for quantifying kinesthesia after stroke.
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