Kinematics of Single-Plane and Multiplanar Tasks in Adults with Asymptomatic and Symptomatic Wrists

Wrist symptoms are common in 10% of the population. The presence of symptoms, such as prior injury, instability, or pain, may lead to altered wrist mechanics, negatively affecting wrist function, mobility, and quality of life. Healthy wrist kinematics during daily tasks have been investigated, but few studies have compared asymptomatic and symptomatic wrist kinematics during multiplanar functional tasks and activities of daily living (ADLs). The purpose of this study was to quantify wrist kinematics during single-plane tasks, multiplanar functional tasks, and ADLs and compare them between two groups of adults with asymptomatic (ASYM) and symptomatic (SYM) wrists. Established motion capture techniques were applied to determine the wrist joint angles during each of the tasks. The Permutational Multivariate Analysis of Variation was used to compare the distribution among the wrist joint angle metrics between groups, and post-hoc Wilcoxon rank sum tests were used for further analyses. Several significant kinematic differences were found between the asymptomatic and symptomatic including maximal sagittal and coronal plane ROM, dart throwing motion, and eating tasks. We observed that the symptomatic group performed these tasks with a decreased range of motion compared to the asymptomatic group. An intriguing compensatory mechanism was observed during the dart throwing motion task where the SYM group showed increased coronal motion with reduced sagittal motion. This compensation has not yet been previously reported. These results identified significant differences in wrist biomechanics between groups with and without a history of wrist injury. This work suggests foundational motions and functional tasks necessary for daily life activities may be targeted for designing personalized rehabilitation approaches.