Caracterização de tarefa motora estática e cinética de antebraço e mão em indivíduos hígidos

Abstract

There are numerous scales in literature to characterize the degree of severity of neuromotor diseases. Among them, we can mention the Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), which is widely used in the clinical practice. The main limitation of scales such as the UPDRS is the subjectivity of evaluation based on the experience of examiners. In this context, the use of objective scales is of great relevance in the process of assessing and monitoring the evolution of neuromotor diseases. In order to contribute to the objective assessment of wrist and forearm static and kinetic motor tasks, this research proposed an index that characterizes normality patterns for healthy individuals. In total, 99 neurologically healthy subjects participated in the study. Inertial and electromyographic signals of the forearm and wrist were detected during the execution of the following tasks: pinch grip, pronation and supination of the forearm, and support of the upper limb against gravity. For visualization and processing of the data, a set of features was estimated and projected onto a two-dimensional space using the T-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE) method. A normality index was proposed based on the normalized Euclidean distance of the data referring to each type of task. To exemplify the practical application of the proposed index, data were collected from individuals with Parkinson's disease, which is a neurodegenerative illness, very prevalent nowadays. Its clinical symptoms includes tremor, bradykinesia, stiffness and postural disorders, compromising the movements of the upper limb such as forearm and wrist. The estimated values for the index indicated atypical patterns for these individuals when compared to normality patterns. We hope that the proposed index can be used to assess the severity of neuromotor diseases, such as the Parkinson's disease.