Sensorized assessment of bilateral hand movements in patients with stroke driven by rhythmic auditory or visual-auditory stimulation.

In this study, we used a marker less system based on two infrared sensors to assess the kinematics of up and down in-phase and anti-phase bilateral hand oscillations synchronized or not with an external stimulus. A group of stroke survivors, one of age-matched healthy subjects and one of young healthy subjects were tested in three conditions: no stimulus, auditory stimulus, and video-auditory stimulus. Our results showed significant negative effects of visual-auditory stimulus in the frequency of movements (p = 0.001), and of auditory stimulus in their fluidity (p = 0.013). These results are conceivably related to the attentional overload required during the execution of bilateral movements driven by an external stimulus. However, a positive effect of external stimulus was found in increasing the range of movements of the less functional hand in all subjects (p = 0.023). These findings highlight as the type of stimulus may play a crucial role in the patient's performance with respect to movements that are not-externally driven. PMID: 33386034 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Journal of Biological Regulators and Homeostatic Agents - Category: Biomedical Science Tags: J Biol Regul Homeost Agents Source Type: research