Validity and reliability of an accelerometer-based assessgame to quantify upper limb selective voluntary motor...

Area of Science:

• Pediatric neurology
• Rehabilitation medicine
• Motor control research

Background:

• Current clinical assessments for selective voluntary motor control (SVMC) use an ordinal scale, limiting precision.
• There is a need for more sensitive and objective methods to evaluate motor function in children with neurological impairments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and evaluate a novel, playful, interval-scaled method (assessgame) for assessing SVMC in children with brain lesions.
• To determine the validity and reliability of this new assessment tool.

Main Methods:

• Thirty-one neurologically intact children and 33 children with upper motor neuron lesions participated.
• An accelerometer-based movement tracking game (assessgame) measured joint movement accuracy and involuntary movements.
• Outcomes were correlated with established clinical scales (Manual Ability Classification System, Selective Control of the Upper Extremity Scale) and therapist ratings; reliability was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients.

Main Results:

• The assessgame demonstrated significant correlations with existing clinical measures for both accuracy and involuntary movement scores.
• Patients with brain lesions performed significantly worse than healthy peers across various age levels, except for the dominant/less affected arm in the youngest group.
• The assessment showed good relative and absolute reliability, with intraclass correlation coefficients of 0.80 for accuracy and 0.92 for involuntary movements.

Conclusions:

• The novel assessgame is a valid tool for evaluating SVMC in children with brain lesions.
• While valid, further research is needed to enhance the reliability of the assessgame.
• Future studies should investigate the sensitivity of the assessgame to detect changes following interventions.