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Updated: Sep 4, 2025
A Simple Non-invasive Method for Temporary Knockdown of Upper Limb Proprioception
Published on: March 3, 2018
Assessing proprioceptive acuity in people with multiple sclerosis
Serena Goldlist, Darrin O Wijeyaratnam, Thomas Edwards1
1School of Human Kinetics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Background:
Proprioceptive acuity and impairments in proprioceptively guided reaches have not been comprehensively examined in people with multiple sclerosis (MS).
Objective:
To examine proprioceptive acuity in people with MS who self-report and who do not self-report upper limb (UL) impairment, and to determine how people with MS reach proprioceptive targets.
Methods:
Twenty-four participants with MS were recruited into two groups based on self-reported UL impairment: MS-R (i.e. report UL impairment; n = 12) vs. MS-NR (i.e. do not report UL impairment; n = 12). Proprioception was assessed using ipsilateral and contralateral robotic proprioceptive matching tasks.
Results:
Participants in the MS-R group demonstrated worse proprioceptive acuity compared to the MS-NR group on the ipsilateral and contralateral robotic matching tasks. Analyses of reaches to proprioceptive targets further revealed that participants in the MS-R group exhibited deficits in movement planning, as demonstrated by greater errors at peak velocity in the contralateral matching task in comparison to the MS-NR group.
Conclusion:
Our findings suggest that people with MS who self-report UL impairment demonstrate worse proprioceptive acuity, as well as poorer movement planning in comparison to people with MS who do not report UL impairment.
