Session Information
Session Title: AA 2022 Posters - Neurological Rehabilitation
Session Time: None. Available on demand.
Disclosures: Jing Lin, MD: No financial relationships or conflicts of interest
Background and/or Objectives: The dominance of the upper extremity (UE) can affect its kinematics in functional task execution. Whether UE dominance influences compensatory trunk motion in healthy controls and stroke is less clear, and was our focus of study.
Design: cross-sectional observational cohort
Setting: Academic hospital
Participants: We studied 47 right-hand dominant chronic stroke subjects (25 female, 22 male; 26 left paretic, 21 right paretic; age 58.6 ± 13.6 years; time post-stroke 5.5 ± 6.3 years; mean Fugl-Meyer (FM) score 44.1 ± 15.0) and 28 controls (14 female, 14 male; age 63.0 ± 13.0 years).
Interventions: not applicable
Main Outcome Measures: Subjects performed a reaching task to a midline target placed 20cm distant as they wore nine inertial measurement units on their upper extremities and trunk. We examined the effect of UE dominance on maximum trunk, shoulder, elbow, and wrist angles (paired and unpaired t-tests), and the relationship between FM score and joint angles in stroke patients (Spearman’s correlation).
Results: In controls, left UEs had less elbow extension and shoulder flexion and abduction with greater thoracic trunk lateral tilt than right UEs (all p < 0.045). In stroke patients, paretic left UEs had less shoulder abduction and thoracic rotation, with greater internal rotation than paretic right UEs. Neither subject groups had a significant difference in lumbar trunk flexion, tilt and axial rotation based on UE side. In the paretic UE of stroke patients, higher FM scores were moderately correlated greater elbow extension and greater lumbar flexion (rho>0.36, p < 0.02).
Conclusions: We observed a significant influence of dominance on UE kinematics and upper trunk movement during a reaching task for both healthy UEs and paretic UEs. This influence did not extend to compensatory motions in the lumbar trunk. Surprisingly, trunk flexion increased with less UE impairment, which may reflect a normal strategy to position the body closer to the field of action.
Level of Evidence: Level III
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
Lin J. Dominance of the Upper Extremity Affects Kinematics but Not Trunk Compensation During Reaching Task for Both Healthy Controls and Chronic Stroke [abstract]. PM R. 2022; 14(S1)(suppl 1). https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/dominance-of-the-upper-extremity-affects-kinematics-but-not-trunk-compensation-during-reaching-task-for-both-healthy-controls-and-chronic-stroke/. Accessed May 21, 2025.« Back to AAPM&R Annual Assembly 2022
PM&R Meeting Abstracts - https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/dominance-of-the-upper-extremity-affects-kinematics-but-not-trunk-compensation-during-reaching-task-for-both-healthy-controls-and-chronic-stroke/