Planning reaching and grasping movements: simulating reduced movement capabilities in spastic hemiparesis

In this paper we describe how a theory of posture-based motion planning recently applied to human grasping may contribute to the understanding of grasping pathology. The theory is implemented as a computer model rendered as a stick-figure animation capable of generating realistic multi-joint grasping movements. As shown here, the model can also be used to simulate grasping movements whose kinematics resemble those of grasps performed by people with spastic hemiparesis. The simulations demonstrate effects of: (a) reduced ranges of motion of arm joints on the size of the reachable workspace, (b) awkward starting postures on the time course of the hand closing around an object, (c) increased costs of joint rotations on movement time, and (d) addition of noise to biphasic joint rotations on the low-velocity phase of wrist transport.