Validation of upper limb motor assessment tasks using a rehabilitation robot in healthy children.

OBJECTIVE: To validate, establish norms and evaluate the reproducibility of upper limb motor assessment tasks using REAplan in healthy children. REAplan is a rehabilitation robotic device allowing upper limb mobilization in the horizontal plane.

MATERIAL/PATIENTS AND METHODS: Forty-nine healthy children between six and twelve years participated in this study. Each child was assessed clinically and with REAplan, and twelve children were assessed twice. Elbow flexor and extensor muscles force were assessed with an isometric dynamometer Microfet II. REAplan allows assessing muscle force by an isometric and isokinetic evaluation (18cm/s) in three directions. Finally, the kinematic was assessed by a pointing task to 30 targets evenly distribute in the REAplan working space.

RESULTS: The isometric force assessed with REAplan is highly correlated with the one assessed with the dynamometer for flexor muscles (r=0.8 and P<0.001) and is moderate for extensor muscles (r=0.61 and P<0.001). The isokinetic force assessment showed that children developed a higher force when their upper limb was mobilized in a trajectory in front of them compared to trajectories angled 45°C in diagonal. This is true for elbow flexor and extensor muscles (P<0.001). For the kinematic assessment, straightness, averaged speed and speed metric improve when the distance to reach a target is longer (P<0.05). Finally, all assessment tasks showed a very good reproducibility (ICC>0.82 and P<0.001) and this study allowed to establish norms for each age group.

DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: This study allowed validating, establishing norms and evaluating the reproducibility of motor performance assessment tasks in healthy children using REAplan. This method can now be used to assess brain-damaged children. Some of these results will be illustrated during the congress.