Automated assessment of upper extremity movement impairment due to stroke

Current diagnosis and treatment of movement impairment post-stroke is based on the subjective assessment of select movements by a trained clinical specialist. However, modern low-cost motion capture technology allows for the development of automated quantitative assessment of motor impairment. Such outcome measures are crucial for advancing post-stroke treatment methods. We sought to develop an automated method of measuring the quality of movement in clinically-relevant terms from low-cost motion capture. Unconstrained movements of upper extremity were performed by people with chronic hemiparesis and recorded by standard and low-cost motion capture systems. Quantitative scores derived from motion capture were compared to qualitative clinical scores produced by trained human raters. A strong linear relationship was found between qualitative scores and quantitative scores derived from both standard and low-cost motion capture. Performance of the automated scoring algorithm was matched by averaged qualitative scores of three human raters. We conclude that low-cost motion capture combined with an automated scoring algorithm is a feasible method to assess objectively upper-arm impairment post stroke. The application of this technology may not only reduce the cost of assessment of post-stroke movement impairment, but also promote the acceptance of objective impairment measures into routine medical practice.