Movement Quality: A Novel Biomarker Based on Principles of Neuroscience

You first have to solve getting to 100% recovery, then you can work on cleaning up movements. Your order of research is completely wrong, which we could correct if we had ANY STROKE LEADERSHIP AT ALL.

Movement Quality: A Novel Biomarker Based on Principles of Neuroscience

Stanislaw Solnik, PhD, Mariusz P. Furmanek, PhD, Daniele Piscitelli, PhD

First Published November 13, 2020 Research Article 

https://doi.org/10.1177/1545968320969936

Article information

 

Abstract

A major problem in neurorehabilitation is the lack of objective outcomes to measure movement quality. Movement quality features, such as coordination and stability, are essential for everyday motor actions. These features allow reacting to continuously changing environment or to resist external perturbations. Neurological disorders affect movement quality, leading to functionally impaired movements. Recent findings suggest that the central nervous system organizes motor elements (eg, muscles, joints, fingers) into task-specific ensembles to stabilize motor tasks performance. A method to quantify this feature has been previously developed based on the uncontrolled manifold (UCM) hypothesis. UCM quantifies movement quality in a spatial-temporal domain using intertrial analysis of covariation between motor elements. In this point-of-view article, we first describe major obstacles (eg, the need for group analysis) that interfere with UCM application in clinical settings. Then, we propose a process of quantifying movement quality for a single individual with a novel use of bootstrapping simulations and UCM analysis. Finally, we reanalyze previously published data from individuals with neurological disorders performing a wide range of motor tasks, that is, multi-digit pressing and postural balance tasks. Our method allows one to assess motor quality impairments in a single individual and to detect clinically important motor behavior changes. Our solution may be incorporated into a clinical setting to assess sensorimotor impairments, evaluate the effects of specific neurological treatments, or track movement quality recovery over time. We also recommended the proposed solution to be used jointly with a typical statistical analysis of UCM parameters in cohort studies.

Keywords neurorehabilitation, motor quality, neurological disorders, motor control, translational research

Access Options

 

Researchers study neurology of balancing on two legs

If we still do not understand walking then how the hell are our therapists supposed to create a stroke walking protocol to correct our problems in walking? I'm a great example, spasticity that turns my left foot out slightly creates pain in my left foot in various spots and since there is no cure for spasticity, I'm completely screwed.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-12-neurology-legs.html
Walking on two legs is inherently unstable, meaning that the human central nervous system must work hard to maintain balance. Walking motion is maintained by two control approaches—feedforward control, in which the body anticipates possible disturbances to steady walking, and feedback control, when the body reacts to an unseen disturbance to stay upright. The precise mechanisms underlying these control approaches are not yet fully understood.

To uncover variables underpinning feedback control, Tetsuro Funato at the University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan, together with scientists from Kyoto University, used a technique based on 'uncontrolled manifold analysis' (UCM) —a way of quantifying the behavior of different multi-segmental motion, how their relationships are formed and how they are used in response to disturbances.
Funato and his team gathered data from 11 healthy male participants who were asked to walk steadily on a treadmill. The researchers sped up or slowed down the treadmill abruptly, with consecutive disturbances occurring either frequently (within one walking cycle) or gradually (over a few steps).
The team were interested in the significance of 'intersegmental co-ordination' on walking control - specifically, the interaction of the thigh, shank and foot during motion phases. They compared this with fluctuations in the participants' center of mass, head and limb axis during both steady and disturbed walking.
Their UCM-based results indicated that fluctuations in intersegmental co-ordination were smaller than center of mass, head and limb axis fluctuations. This suggests intersegmental co-ordination may play a significant role in a feedback control of walking by maintaining a continuous cyclic pattern regardless of disturbances.

Explore further: Walking on an incline could help people suffering from knee problems

More information: Tetsuro Funato et al. Validating the feedback control of intersegmental coordination by fluctuation analysis of disturbed walking, Experimental Brain Research (2015). DOI: 10.1007/s00221-015-4216-x

Provided by: University of Electro Communications