P. Garofalo

Inter-operator reliability and prediction bands of a novel protocol to measure the coordinated movements of shoulder-girdle and humerus in clinical settings

A clinical motion analysis protocol was developed to measure the coordinated movements of shoulder-girdle and humerus (girdle-humeral rhythm—GD-H-R) during humerus flexion–extension (HFE) and ab-adduction (HAA), through an optoelectronic system. In particular, the protocol describes the GD-H-R with 2 angle–angle plots for each movement: girdle elevation–depression and protraction–retraction vs HFE, and vs HAA. Each of these plots is further divided in two subplots, one for the upward and one for the downward phases of the movement. By involving 11 participants and 2 operators, we measured the protocol’s inter-operator reliability which ranged from very-good to excellent depending on the angle–angle plot (median values of the inter-operator coefficient of multiple correlation for the angle–angle plots higher than 0.94). We then computed the subjects’ average control patterns, together with statistically meaningful prediction bands. ±1SD confidence bands were also computed and their width ranged from ±0.5° to ±4.6°. Based on these results we could conclude that the method is robust and able to identify even limited differences in the GD-H-R.

MOTION ANALYSIS OF THE UPPER-LIMB BASED ON INERTIAL SENSORS: PART 3 - ASSESSMENT OF INSTRUMENTAL ACCURACY FOR A NEW PROTOCOL

INTRODUCTION Inertial Sensors Systems (ISS) are a new generation of low cost, portable, fully wearable motion analysis systems recently become available on the market [1]. ISS sensing units (SU) are lightweight boxes integrating accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers. For each SU a local system of reference (SoR) is defined, and its relative orientation with respect to a global, earth-based SoR is computed by the ISS in real-time. Based on this property, in [2] a protocol has been presented which allows the estimation of elbow, humero-thoracic and scapulo-thoracic 3D kinematics. In [3] it was proved that the protocol, once used in combination with the Xsens MT9B ISS (Xsens Technologies, NL), is based on bone-embedded SoRs representative of the joints functional anatomy. As a further step, the aim of this third abstract was to assess the limits of the Xsens dynamic accuracy during the execution of the protocol [2]. It was proved in fact that the Xsens accuracy is sensitive to direction and velocity of rotation [4] and that it generally depends on the type of motion (Xsens Technical Manual).