Article

In clinical settings, functional evaluation of shoulder movement is primarily
based on what the patient thinks he/she is able to do rather than what he/she is
actually performing. We proposed a new approach for shoulder assessment based on
inertial sensors to monitor arm movement in the daily routine. The detection of
movement of the humerus relative to the trunk was first validated in a laboratory
setting (sensitivity>95%, specificity>97%). Then, 41 control subjects and 21
patients suffering from a rotator cuff tear were evaluated (before and after
surgery) using clinical questionnaires and a one-day measurement of arm movement.
The quantity of movement was estimated with the movement frequency and its
symmetry index (SIFr). The quality of movement was assessed using the
Kolmogorov-Smirnov distance (KS) between the cumulative distribution of the arm
velocity for controls and the same distribution for each patient. SIFr presented
differences between patients and controls at 3 month follow-up (p<0.05) while KS
showed differences also after 6 months (p<0.01). SIFr illustrated a change in
dominance due to the disorder whereas KS, which appeared independent of the
dominance and occupation, showed a change in movement velocity. Both parameters
were correlated to clinical scores (R(2) reaching 0.5). This approach provides
clinicians with new objective parameters for evaluating the functional ability of
the shoulder in daily conditions, which could be useful for outcome assessment
after surgery.
CI - Copyright (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS