School of Human Kinetics, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Interdisciplinary School of Health Science, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
PLoS One. 2022 Jan 21;17(1):e0262480. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0262480. eCollection 2022.
The ability to accurately complete goal-directed actions, such as reaching for a glass of water, requires coordination between sensory, cognitive and motor systems. When these systems are impaired, like in people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS), deficits in movement arise. To date, the characterization of upper limb performance in PwMS has typically been limited to results attained from self-reported questionnaires or clinical tools. Our aim was to characterize visually guided reaching performance in PwMS. Thirty-six participants (12 PwMS who reported upper limb impairment (MS-R), 12 PwMS who reported not experiencing upper limb impairment (MS-NR), and 12 age- and sex-matched control participants without MS (CTL)) reached to 8 targets in a virtual environment while seeing a visual representation of their hand in the form of a cursor on the screen. Reaches were completed with both the dominant and non-dominant hands. All participants were able to complete the visually guided reaching task, such that their hand landed on the target. However, PwMS showed noticeably more atypical reaching profiles when compared to control participants. In accordance with these observations, analyses of reaching performance revealed that the MS-R group was more variable with respect to the time it took to initiate and complete their movements compared to the CTL group. While performance of the MS-NR group did not differ significantly from either the CTL or MS-R groups, individuals in the MS-NR group were less consistent in their performance compared to the CTL group. Together these findings suggest that PwMS with and without self-reported upper limb impairment have deficits in the planning and/or control of their movements. We further argue that deficits observed during movement in PwMS who report upper limb impairment may arise due to participants compensating for impaired movement planning processes.
准确完成目标导向动作的能力，如伸手去拿一杯水，需要感官、认知和运动系统之间的协调。当这些系统受损时，比如多发性硬化症患者（PwMS），就会出现运动障碍。迄今为止，对 PwMS 上肢功能的描述通常仅限于通过自我报告的问卷或临床工具获得的结果。我们的目的是描述 PwMS 中视觉引导的伸手表现。36 名参与者（12 名报告上肢功能障碍的 PwMS（MS-R），12 名报告上肢功能无障碍的 PwMS（MS-NR），以及 12 名年龄和性别匹配的无 MS 的对照组参与者（CTL））在虚拟环境中到达 8 个目标，同时在屏幕上看到他们手的光标视觉表示。伸手动作是用惯用手和非惯用手完成的。所有参与者都能够完成视觉引导的伸手任务，使他们的手落在目标上。然而，与对照组参与者相比，PwMS 表现出明显更不典型的伸手模式。与这些观察结果一致，对伸手表现的分析表明，与 CTL 组相比，MS-R 组在开始和完成动作的时间方面更具可变性。虽然 MS-NR 组的表现与 CTL 组或 MS-R 组没有显著差异，但与 CTL 组相比，MS-NR 组的个体在表现上不太一致。这些发现表明，有或没有自我报告的上肢功能障碍的 PwMS 存在运动规划和/或控制方面的缺陷。我们进一步认为，报告上肢功能障碍的 PwMS 在运动中观察到的缺陷可能是由于参与者对受损的运动规划过程进行了补偿。
