Effects of Hand Configuration on the Grasping, Holding, and Placement of an Instrumented Object in Patients With Hemiparesis

Wow, what cherry picking of high functioning stroke patients.  Lots of stroke survivors left behind by this research. Is it too difficult for you to figure out how to treat patients with major damage? Then try to live with such damage like millions of survivors have to.  I have zero ability to open my hand due to spasticity. Solve spasticity and I could easily recover.

Effects of Hand Configuration on the Grasping, Holding, and Placement of an Instrumented Object in Patients With Hemiparesis

Ross Parry^1,2*, Sandra Macias Soria¹, Pascale Pradat-Diehl^3,4,5, Véronique Marchand-Pauvert⁵, Nathanaël Jarrassé¹ and Agnès Roby-Brami¹

• ¹Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France
• ²Centre de Recherche sur le Sport et le Mouvement, EA 2931, Université Paris Nanterre, Nanterre, France
• ³Service de Médecine Physique et de Réadaptation, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, Hôpitaux Universitaires Pitié Salpêtrière-Charles Foix, Paris, France
• ⁴AP-HP, GRC n°18 Handicap cognitif et réadaptation (HanCRe), Sorbonne Université, Hôpitaux Universitaires Pitié Salpêtrière-Charles Foix, Paris, France
• ⁵Laboratoire d'Imagerie Biomédicale, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France

Objective: Limitations with manual dexterity are an important problem for patients suffering from hemiparesis post stroke. Sensorimotor deficits, compensatory strategies and the use of alternative grasping configurations may influence the efficiency of prehensile motor behavior. The aim of the present study is to examine how different grasp configurations affect patient ability to regulate both grip forces and object orientation when lifting, holding and placing an object.

Methods: Twelve stroke patients with mild to moderate hemiparesis were recruited. Each was required to lift, hold and replace an instrumented object. Four different grasp configurations were tested on both the hemiparetic and less affected arms. Load cells from each of the 6 faces of the instrumented object and an integrated inertial measurement unit were used to extract data regarding the timing of unloading/loading phases, regulation of grip forces, and object orientation throughout the task.

Results: Grip forces were greatest when using a palmar-digital grasp and lowest when using a top grasp. The time delay between peak acceleration and maximum grip force was also greatest for palmar-digital grasp and lowest for the top grasp. Use of the hemiparetic arm was associated with increased duration of the unloading phase and greater difficulty with maintaining the vertical orientation of the object at the transitions to object lifting and object placement. The occurrence of touch and push errors at the onset of grasp varied according to both grasp configuration and use of the hemiparetic arm.

Conclusion: Stroke patients exhibit impairments in the scale and temporal precision of grip force adjustments and reduced ability to maintain object orientation with various grasp configurations using the hemiparetic arm. Nonetheless, the timing and magnitude of grip force adjustments may be facilitated using a top grasp configuration. Conversely, whole hand prehension strategies compound difficulties with grip force scaling and inhibit the synchrony of grasp onset and object release.

Introduction

Cerebrovascular accidents (stroke) are a frequent cause of disability (1) and the recovery of upper-limb function in particular, is a key determinant of independence in activities of daily living (2). Broadly speaking, the physical impairment experienced by patients is characterized by loss of strength, abnormal movement patterns (pathological synergies), and changes in muscle tone to the side of the body contralateral to the stroke (3, 4). This presentation is commonly referred to as hemiparesis and its severity tends to reflect the extent of the lesion to the corticospinal tract (5). Subtle changes in movement kinematics and hand function on the ipsilesional upper-limb have also been documented and may be the consequence of direct impairment of ipsilateral motor pathways (6, 7), as well as reorganization of the non-lesioned hemisphere to support recovery of motor-function in the hemiparetic limb (8–10). Above all though, patients living with stroke find that limitations with manual dexterity of the hemiparetic arm have the most significant effect upon their ability to carry out activities involving hand use in daily life (11).

These impairments in patient hand function manifest in multiple different aspects of motor performance. This may include reduced strength (3), loss of individuated finger control (12), and abnormal force control at the level of the fingers (13). Increased muscle tone and spasticity though the flexors of the wrist and hand may further compound these difficulties and inhibit the ability to open the hand in preparation for grasping (14). Atypical reaching and grasping patterns are often seen to emerge both as a consequence of and as a response to the motor dysfunction (15, 16).

Unfortunately, rehabilitation of upper limb impairments proves to be challenging. Whilst numerous therapeutic modalities (e.g., bilateral training, constraint-induced therapy, electrical stimulation, task-oriented, high intensity programs) have been evaluated in clinical trials, none have demonstrated consistent effects upon hand function (17–19). Indeed, previous research papers have described therapy outcomes in upper limb rehabilitation post stroke as “unacceptably poor” (20). Ideally, the design of neurorehabilitation programs should be grounded upon an understanding of basic mechanisms involved in neural plasticity and motor learning (21, 22). Part of this process implies coming to terms with the factors which characterize the disorganization in voluntary motor output (21). However, the majority of clinical tools currently used for evaluating hand function distinguish motor performance according to ordinal rating scales or task completion time (e.g., Frenchay Arm Test, Jebson-Taylor Hand Function Test) (23, 24). These kinds of assessments lack sensitivity and may prove insufficient for detecting the presence of mild motor deficits or subtle, yet clinically important changes in hand coordination (25, 26). Evidence based frameworks for hand rehabilitation have specifically called for the integration of new technology to support patient assessment and treatment planning (27). Despite this, the transposition of technology for upper limb rehabilitation from the research domain into clinical practice has been limited (28, 29). In the assessment of manual dexterity, the underlying challenge involves analyzing sensorimotor function of the hand with respect to its interaction with objects in the environment (30).

Successfully managing grasping and object handling tasks requires skilled control of prehensile finger forces. In healthy adults, grip forces are regulated to be marginally greater than the minimum required to prevent the object from slipping (31). This safety margin is calibrated according to the shape, surface friction and weight distribution of the object (32, 33). As the hand moves through space (lifting, transporting, object placement), grip force is continually modulated, proportional to the load forces associated with the mass and acceleration of that object (34). This temporal coupling between grip and load forces is considered a hallmark of anticipatory sensorimotor control (35). Disruption to motor planning, volitional motor control or somatosensory feedback may lead to a breakdown in the timing and magnitude of grip force adjustments.

Numerous studies have examined grip force regulation in neurological pathologies including cerebellar dysfunction (36), peripheral sensory neuropathy (37, 38), Parkinson's disease (36, 37, 39, 40) as well as congenital and acquired brain lesions (13, 36, 41–45). For patients suffering from hemiparesis post stroke, difficulty with coordinating the grasping and lifting action are frequently associated with temporal discrepancies between grip forces and load forces (46). The cerebral hemisphere implicated in the CVA (13, 47) and the extent of the resulting sensory deficits (48, 49) have also been observed to influence anticipatory grip force scaling. This body of work highlights the potential interest of using instrumented objects for the diagnosis and evaluation of the impairments associated with hemiparesis (45, 46, 48, 50–53).

As it stands, these objective studies of hand function post stroke have focused primarily upon either the lifting or the vertical movement components in object handling. To a certain extent, this limitation has been related to technical restrictions. Other than a handful of studies by Hermsdorfer et al. (8, 49), research in this field has predominantly used manipulanda designed for the study of precision grip, where strain gauge force transducers are attached to a separate base unit [e.g., (23–25, 29, 33, 35, 37)]. These devices cannot be freely handled by subjects, much less a person with an upper-limb movement disorder. Indeed, patients with hemiparesis often experience specific impairments with precision grip (53) and regularly use alternative grasping strategies such as whole hand grasping (15, 16, 54). Previous researchers have hypothesized that these alternative grasp strategies may impact grip force scaling (55) and compromise patient ability to manage hand-object-environment relationships during object manipulation (56).

In a recent study with healthy adult subjects, (57) we demonstrated how an instrumented object with multiple load cells and an integrated inertial measurement unit (58) may be used to examine relationships between different grasp configurations, grip force regulation and object orientation. The purpose of the present investigation was to extend this work to the study of patients with hemiparesis post stroke. The first objective was to compare how four alternative grasp configurations commonly used in daily tasks affect grip force regulation in this population. The second objective was to explore the timing and coordination of the whole task sequence (grasping, lifting, holding, placement and object release). The third and final objective was to evaluate the stability of the hand-held object's orientation across the different phases of the task.