Are Kinematic Assessments from a Planar Reaching Task Better Than Standardized Clinical Assessments at Predicting Functional Independence in Chronic Stroke Survivors?

Kinematic assessments provide a quantitative evaluation of movement outcomes in chronic stroke survivors. However, it is unclear whether these assessments provide an added benefit to standardized clinical assessments when evaluating functional independence. We hypothesized that kinematic assessments of ipsilesional arm motor and cognitive performance would be better at predicting functional independence compared to their standardized clinical assessment counterparts. We recruited 21 chronic stroke survivors with severe hemiparesis to complete 2 clinical assessments (Jebsen-Taylor Hand Function Test, Grooved Pegboard Test) and 2 kinematic assessments on the Kinereach motion tracking system (a simple reaching task and a cognitively challenging reaching task). We found moderate-to-weak correlations between the Functional Independence Measure (FIM) and each of the kinematic outcomes. The clinical assessments had weak correlations with the FIM. Thus, kinematic assessments provided no significant advantage over clinical assessments in predicting functional independence.