BACKGROUND Reorganization of the human motor cortex can be induced by specific patterns of peripheral afferent stimulation. The potential for afferent stimulation to facilitate the functional recovery associated with conventional rehabilitative techniques has not previously been investigated. OBJECTIVE The authors sought to determine whether combining appropriate afferent stimulation with tas...

Purpose: The first step to manage motor impairment of upper limb in patients with subacute stroke is having an accurate assessment tool. The Fugl-Meyer assessment of upper extremity and 9-hole pegboard test are used to evaluate motor function and hand dexterity in stroke survivals. The present study aimed to investigate the test-retest reliability and minimal detectable change (MDC) in these tw...

A method for the fast approximation of dexterity indices for given underwater vehicle-manipulator systems (UVMS) configurations is presented. Common underwater tasks are associated with two wellknown dexterity indices and two types of neural networks are designed and trained to approximate each one of them. The method avoids the lengthy calculation of the Jacobian, its determinant and the compu...

STUDY DESIGN Retrospective Cohort INTRODUCTION Important outcomes of polliciation to treat thumb hypoplasia/aplasia include strength, function, dexterity, and quality of life. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY To evaluate outcomes and examine predictors of outcome after early childhood pollicization. METHODS 8 children (10 hands) were evaluated 3-15 years after surgery. Physical examination, questionn...

One of the most devastating consequences of early corticospinal lesions is the impaired dexterity that results in a noticeable deficit while manipulating small objects. One purpose of the present study was to investigate the extent to which a deficit in the coordination of fingertip forces when grasping and lifting an object between the thumb and index finger could account for the impaired dext...

Parameter determination and optimization play an important role for parallel kinematic machines since the machines properties depend significantly on an appropriate choice of the geometry. In this paper, the design of parallel machines is formulated in terms of a global constrained optimization problem, where the constraints are deduced from imperative process requirements e.g. size of the work...

Using electromyogram (EMG) signals to control upper-limb prostheses is an important clinical option, offering a person with amputation autonomy of control by contracting residual muscles. The dexterity with which one may control a prosthesis has progressed very little, especially when controlling multiple degrees of freedom. Using pattern recognition to discriminate multiple degrees of freedom ...

To conduct tasks that need high dexterity by teleoperation, a unified hand/arm master-slave system was developed. To measure the dexterity of individual teleoperation systems all over the world in equal condition, we propose toy block assembling (LEGO) as the benchmark test for teleoperation systems. Meanwhile, a bilateral teleoperation experiment with ETS-VII (Engineering Test Satellite No.7) ...

BACKGROUND Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is the most common disabling neurological disease. Hand dysfunction is one of the main complaints of patients with MS. The present study aimed to compare hand dexterity of MS patients with low Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) scores and healthy adults. It also sought to identify the predictors of disability status of patients with MS based on their manu...

AIM many everyday activities involve manipulation of objects with the fingertips. Impaired performance in manipulative tasks is common in neurodevelopmental disorders. Thus accurate assessment of an individual's ability to coordinate fingertip forces is important for planning treatment. We evaluated a recently developed assessment tool (the Strength-Dexterity Test), which is based on manipulati...