Shirota Camila, Jansa Jelka, Diaz Javier, Balasubramanian Sivakumar, Mazzoleni Stefano, Borghese N Alberto, Melendez-Calderon Alejandro
Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, 8092, Switzerland.
University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Division of Neurology, Zaloska 2, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
J Neuroeng Rehabil. 2016 Sep 8;13(1):80. doi: 10.1186/s12984-016-0186-x.
Well-developed coordination of the upper extremities is critical for function in everyday life. Interlimb coordination is an intuitive, yet subjective concept that refers to spatio-temporal relationships between kinematic, kinetic and physiological variables of two or more limbs executing a motor task with a common goal. While both the clinical and neuroscience communities agree on the relevance of assessing and quantifying interlimb coordination, rehabilitation engineers struggle to translate the knowledge and needs of clinicians and neuroscientists into technological devices for the impaired. The use of ambiguous definitions in the scientific literature, and lack of common agreement on what should be measured, present large barriers to advancements in this area. Here, we present the different definitions and approaches to assess and quantify interlimb coordination in the clinic, in motor control studies, and by state-of-the-art robotic devices. We then propose a taxonomy of interlimb activities and give recommendations for future neuroscience-based robotic- and sensor-based assessments of upper limb function that are applicable to the everyday clinical practice. We believe this is the first step towards our long-term goal of unifying different fields and help the generation of more consistent and effective tools for neurorehabilitation.
上肢良好的协调性对于日常生活功能至关重要。肢体间协调性是一个直观但主观的概念，它指的是为实现共同目标而执行运动任务的两个或多个肢体的运动学、动力学和生理学变量之间的时空关系。虽然临床和神经科学界都认同评估和量化肢体间协调性的重要性，但康复工程师们却难以将临床医生和神经科学家的知识与需求转化为适用于残障人士的技术设备。科学文献中使用的定义不明确，以及对于应测量内容缺乏共识，给该领域的进展带来了巨大障碍。在此，我们介绍了在临床、运动控制研究以及最先进的机器人设备中评估和量化肢体间协调性的不同定义和方法。然后，我们提出了肢体间活动的分类法，并为未来基于神经科学的上肢功能机器人和传感器评估给出建议，这些评估适用于日常临床实践。我们相信这是朝着我们统一不同领域的长期目标迈出的第一步，并有助于生成更一致、有效的神经康复工具。
