Robotic Assessments of Hand Function in Patients With Parkinson's Disease
Condition: Parkinson Disease
MeSH terms: Parkinson Disease
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      It has been shown that patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) have impaired kinaesthesia and
      haptic perception of the upper limbs. In PD patients, these impairments might be involved in
      the development of hypometria or bradykinesia and may play a role in postural deficits,
      thereby significantly contributing to the overall disability level.

      Dedicated conventional or robot-assisted training might improve sensory-motor function in PD
      patients. In order to provide efficient robot-assisted therapy, robotic devices have to be
      able to tailor the therapy difficulty to the individual impairment profile of each patient.
      For difficulty adaptation in robot-assisted therapy, it is important to assess the impairment
      profiles with the same robotic platform that would be used for therapy, therefore minimizing
      costs or potential errors coming from the use of different devices. However, up to now,
      little emphasis has been placed on providing sensory-motor robot-assisted therapy for the
      upper limbs to persons with PD based on their individual level of impairment.

      The aim of this study is therefore to evaluate if the assessments of sensory-motor hand
      function implemented on a robotic device for hand rehabilitation, i.e. the ReHapticKnob, are
      suitable to measure the impairments of kinaesthesia and haptic perception observed in
      subjects with Parkinson's disease.

      If the assessments implemented in the ReHapticKnob are sensitive enough to detect a
      difference between the sensory-motor function of PD patients and healthy subjects, the device
      might in the future be used to assess improvements before and after sensory-motor therapy.
      This is a necessary step before the investigators can use these assessments to tailor the
      difficulty level of the therapy performed with the ReHapticKnob and to investigate the
      benefits and impact of such a therapy on the kinaesthetic and haptic impairments of persons
      with PD.
    


Intervention name(s): Assessments of the hand sensory function with the ReHapticKnob
Intervention type(s): Device
Intervention description(s): During the assessment sessions with the ReHapticKnob, subjects sit comfortably on a chair in front of a screen and place the fingers of the hand on the handles of the device. The different assessments consist of moving the hand or forearm of the subjects to two different positions and asking the subject to discriminate between them (discrimination thresholds for the amplitude of grasping and forearm pronosupination positions), of passively moving the hand or forearm of the subject at low velocities and asking the subject to say when he/she detects the movement (detection thresholds for passive movements), or of rendering two objects with different stiffness and asking the subject to discriminate between them (discrimination thresholds for the stiffness of objects pinched with the hand).
Intervention model: Single Group Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Other
Keywords: Parkinson Disease; Sensory impairments; Kinaesthesia; Haptic perception; Robot-assisted assessments; Assessment of the hand sensory function