Sensors, Vol. 21, Pages 8002: Muscle Synergies and Clinical Outcome Measures Describe Different Factors of Upper Limb Motor Function in Stroke Survivors Undergoing Rehabilitation in a Virtual Reality Environment

Sensors, Vol. 21, Pages 8002: Muscle Synergies and Clinical Outcome Measures Describe Different Factors of Upper Limb Motor Function in Stroke Survivors Undergoing Rehabilitation in a Virtual Reality Environment Sensors doi: 10.3390/s21238002 Authors: Lorenza Maistrello Daniele Rimini Vincent C. K. Cheung Giorgia Pregnolato Andrea Turolla Recent studies have investigated muscle synergies as biomarkers for stroke, but it remains controversial if muscle synergies and clinical observation convey the same information on motor impairment. We aim to identify whether muscle synergies and clinical scales convey the same information or not. Post-stroke patients were administered an upper limb treatment. Before (T0) and after (T1) treatment, we assessed motor performance with clinical scales and motor output with EMG-derived muscle synergies. We implemented an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to identify the underlying relationships among all variables, at T0 and T1, and a general linear regression model to infer any relationships between the similarity between the affected and unaffected synergies (Median-sp) and clinical outcomes at T0. Clinical variables improved with rehabilitation whereas muscle-synergy parameters did not show any significant change. EFA and CFA showed that clinical variables and muscle-synergy parameters (except Median-sp) were grouped into different factors. Regression model showed that Median-sp could be...
Source: Sensors - Category: Biotechnology Authors: Tags: Article Source Type: research