Marini F, Chwastek C, Romei M, Cavalleri M, Bonato S, Reni G
Bioengineering Laboratory of the I.R.C.C.S. "Eugenio Medea", Bosisio Parini, Italy.
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2010;2010:6633-6. doi: 10.1109/IEMBS.2010.5627144.
Objective and quantitative measurement is crucial in the definition of functional impairment and in the tracking of disease progress over time of patients affected by progressive pathologies, such as ataxia. A new experimental procedure for the quantitative description of upper limb movement and coordination analysis was developed by the integration of an optoelectronic system and dedicated electronic board with four visual and pressure stimuli. 20 passive retroreflective markers were placed on the subject's body and two types pointing tests were defined: in the first one, the subjects were asked to reach with the index finger five consecutive times each of the three targets ("repetitive test"), and in the second one, the subjects were asked to randomly reach the targets with the index finger ("random test"). The preliminary results showed that patients affected by ataxia took more time with a less smooth finger tip movement to perform the reaching tests when compared to healthy subjects. The velocity was lower and its profile was more irregular in ataxic subjects. The new developed experimental procedure seems to be very promising in the quantitative description of upper limb movements of pathological and healthy subjects and it seems to be able to distinguish the impairments due to different levels of ataxia.
对于进行性疾病（如共济失调）患者，客观且定量的测量对于功能障碍的定义以及疾病进展随时间的跟踪至关重要。通过将光电系统和带有四个视觉及压力刺激的专用电子板相结合，开发出了一种用于定量描述上肢运动和协调分析的新实验程序。在受试者身体上放置了20个被动反光标记，并定义了两种指向测试：在第一种测试中，要求受试者用食指连续五次触及三个目标中的每一个（“重复测试”）；在第二种测试中，要求受试者用食指随机触及目标（“随机测试”）。初步结果表明，与健康受试者相比，共济失调患者在进行触及测试时花费的时间更长，指尖运动更不平稳。共济失调受试者的速度更低，其速度曲线更不规则。新开发的实验程序在定量描述病理和健康受试者的上肢运动方面似乎非常有前景，并且似乎能够区分不同程度共济失调所导致的损伤。
