Finger-Worn Sensors for Accurate Functional Assessment of the Upper Limbs in Real-World Settings

Remote monitoring of stroke survivors’ upper limb performance (stroke-affected vs. unaffected limbs) can provide clinicians with information regarding the true impact of rehabilitation in the real-world settings, which allows opportunities to administer individually tailored therapeutic interventions. In this work, we examine the use of finger-worn accelerometers, which are capable of capturing gross-arm as well as fine-hand movements, in order to quantitatively compare the performance of the upper limbs during goal-directed activities of daily living (ADLs). In this proof-of-concept study, data were collected over an eight-hour duration from ten neurologically intact individuals who wore the sensors and continued with their daily living. The sensor-based measure was compared to two clinically validated measures of handedness, i.e., Waterloo Handedness Questionnaire and Fazio Laterality Inventory, that quantity the level of preference of the limbs in performing ADLs. The results yielded statistically significant correlations to the Waterloo and Fazio scores with Pearson correlation coefficients of 0.90 and 0.87 respectively, which was substantially superior compared to the previously studied measure based on wrist-worn accelerometers. We believe this study presents an opportunity to accurately monitor the goal-directed use of the upper limbs in the real-world settings.