Validation of an assessment protocol for upper limb impairments using a rehabilitation robot in healthy children and children with cerebral palsy

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. Subjects: 49 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 to assess 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 p0,82 and p