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A Robotic Test Of Proprioception Within The Hemiparetic Arm Post-Stroke, Lucia Simo, Lior Botzer, Claude Ghez, Robert A. Scheidt

Robert Scheidt

Background: Proprioception plays important roles in planning and control of limb posture and movement. The impact of proprioceptive deficits on motor function post-stroke has been difficult to elucidate due to limitations in current tests of arm proprioception. Common clinical tests only provide ordinal assessment of proprioceptive integrity (eg. intact, impaired or absent). We introduce a standardized, quantitative method for evaluating proprioception within the arm on a continuous, ratio scale. We demonstrate the approach, which is based on signal detection theory of sensory psychophysics, in two tasks used to characterize motor function after stroke. Methods: Hemiparetic stroke survivors and neurologically intact …