Using Sensorized Gloves and Dimensional Reduction for Hand Function Assessment of Patients with Osteoarthritis

Area of Science:

• Biomechanics
• Medical instrumentation
• Rehabilitation engineering

Background:

• Sensorized gloves capture hand kinematics crucial for daily function.
• Clinical use is limited by the complexity of analyzing multiple joint angles simultaneously.
• Early detection of hand osteoarthritis (HOA) and dysfunction indicators requires simplified kinematic analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To simplify the analysis of hand kinematics for early hand osteoarthritis (HOA) detection.
• To identify kinematic indicators of dysfunction using sensorized gloves.
• To develop a more accurate diagnostic tool for HOA compared to existing methods.

Main Methods:

• Principal component (PC) analysis was applied to 16 joint angles from sensorized gloves during the Sollerman hand function test (SHFT).
• Dimensional reduction identified five key kinematic synergies (reduced variables - RVs).
• A discriminant function was developed using these RVs for HOA detection.

Main Results:

• Five kinematic synergies were identified: fingers arch, hand closure, thumb-index pinch, forced thumb opposition, and palmar arching.
• Significant differences in movement ranges and median values were found between HOA patients and healthy subjects for several RVs.
• The developed discriminant function achieved a higher HOA detection success rate than the SHFT.
• Temporal profiles of RVs showed potential as dysfunction indicators.
• Reducing sensors to one per synergy resulted in a mean error of 7.0°.

Conclusions:

• Kinematic synergy analysis using sensorized gloves simplifies hand movement assessment for HOA.
• This approach provides a more accurate and sensitive method for early HOA detection and dysfunction identification.
• The reduced sensor requirement shows potential for practical clinical application.