Evaluating motor performance after stroke with a custom MR-conditional upper extremity reach and grasp system

We developed an MR conditional upper extremity reach and grasp movement evaluation (UE R/G) system to evaluate the reach and grasp movements of stroke survivors before and after robot-assisted practice of activities of daily living. This paper describes reaching motor performance of 12 low and high functioning stroke survivors using UE R/G with some comparison made to reach-to-grasp task. A model is presented that correlates recovery level measured with standard clinical assessment tools with kinematic measures of motor performance derived from analyzing movement trajectories captured by the UE R/G system. We examined one subject´s movements measured by the UE R/G system inside and outside a 3.0 Tesla Magnetic Scanning environment and saw high correlations. The results demonstrate the utility of the MR-conditional UE R/G system to be multi-purpose tool for measurement of motor performance during fMRI activities. This should allow better correlation to any brain activation changes seen during the performance of these tasks.