Multi-joint coordination of functional arm reaching: induced position analysis

Functional arm reaching involves multilinked joints: shoulder, elbow, and wrist. We propose that induced position analysis is a useful analytical tool for multijoint coordination of arm reaching. This method was used to compute the contributions of the net joint moment to the hand position when reaching forward. We describe the method and give examples of validating this model with motion capture data. The shoulder and elbow were prime movers of the arm: both acted together with an "overshoot" and "undershoot" pattern respectively to move the hand forward into the final position.