Validating Objective Metric for Improving Assessment of Spasticity

An instrumented glove worn by doctor to improve subjective assessment of spasticity with an objective metric in order to improve inter- and intra- reliability. The glove contains force sensor array and an inertial measurement unit (IMU). A mock patient is constructed with a mechanism to adjust the arm stiffness, a loadcell and a gyroscope in order to measure the work done to move the arm. The mock patient is the ground truth for validating the proposed objective metric. The force measured by the loadcell in moving the arm of the mock patient and the force estimated by the glove in moving the arm has correlation of 0.83 with untrained users. With experts trained un spasticity assessment, the correlation is 0.84. The mock patient validated the proposed objective metric, since measurement from the loadcell and the estimation from the glove show a consistent inter- and intra- reliability. Such result show promise of the proposed objective metric improves the assessment of spasticity