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. 2021 Feb 4;21(4):1057.
doi: 10.3390/s21041057.

An Inertial Measurement Unit-Based Wireless System for Shoulder Motion Assessment in Patients with Cervical Spinal Cord Injury: A Validation Pilot Study in a Clinical Setting

Riccardo Bravi  1 , Stefano Caputo  2 , Sara Jayousi  2 , Alessio Martinelli  2 , Lorenzo Biotti  2 , Ilaria Nannini  3 , Erez James Cohen  1 , Eros Quarta  1 , Stefano Grasso  1 , Giacomo Lucchesi  3 , Gabriele Righi  3 , Giulio Del Popolo  3 , Lorenzo Mucchi  2 , Diego Minciacchi  1
Affiliations

An Inertial Measurement Unit-Based Wireless System for Shoulder Motion Assessment in Patients with Cervical Spinal Cord Injury: A Validation Pilot Study in a Clinical Setting

Riccardo Bravi et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

Residual motion of upper limbs in individuals who experienced cervical spinal cord injury (CSCI) is vital to achieve functional independence. Several interventions were developed to restore shoulder range of motion (ROM) in CSCI patients. However, shoulder ROM assessment in clinical practice is commonly limited to use of a simple goniometer. Conventional goniometric measurements are operator-dependent and require significant time and effort. Therefore, innovative technology for supporting medical personnel in objectively and reliably measuring the efficacy of treatments for shoulder ROM in CSCI patients would be extremely desirable. This study evaluated the validity of a customized wireless wearable sensors (Inertial Measurement Units-IMUs) system for shoulder ROM assessment in CSCI patients in clinical setting. Eight CSCI patients and eight healthy controls performed four shoulder movements (forward flexion, abduction, and internal and external rotation) with dominant arm. Every movement was evaluated with a goniometer by different testers and with the IMU system at the same time. Validity was evaluated by comparing IMUs and goniometer measurements using Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) and Limits of Agreement (LOA). inter-tester reliability of IMUs and goniometer measurements was also investigated. Preliminary results provide essential information on the accuracy of the proposed wireless wearable sensors system in acquiring objective measurements of the shoulder movements in CSCI patients.

Keywords: clinical setting; goniometer; inertial measurement unit; kinematics; motion tracking; range of motion; shoulder; spinal cord injury; tetraplegia; wireless sensors network.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure A1
Figure A1
Scheme of the Hardware Module of the system. In purple, the components of system hardware module; in green, the components of system software module and in orange, the components of data aggregation/visualization module.
Figure A2
Figure A2
UML Class Diagram of the back-end software module of IMU sensors network system used in this work. The writing (1...*) stands for “from 1 to infinity”.
Figure 1
Figure 1
The four recorded active shoulder maneuvers: forward flexion (A), abduction (B), external rotation (C) and internal rotation (D).
Figure 2
Figure 2
General scheme of the system consisting of 3 main modules (represented with different colors). The round element corresponds to an end user (human), while hexagonal elements (both hardware and software) corresponds to the system. In purple, the components of system hardware module; in green, the components of system software module and in orange, the components of data aggregation/visualization module.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Wearable sensors system for motion assessment installation procedure: MetaMotionR (MMR) sensors boards (A) were put inside the cases (A→B); the cases were put in the velcro bands (B→C); the bands were placed as shown in (D); than the software on the Raspberry Gateway was run to collect data from sensors (E).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Results of experimental measurement campaign in laboratory.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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