The use of accelerometers to measure upper limb use after stroke

Investigators : Prof Mary Galea, Dr Chris Manzie

The most important outcome for rehabilitation is functional activity in the life situation. However, direct, objective, and accurate measures of arm use in the real world are currently not available. Previous attempts to use accelerometry to measure extremity movement have failed because of unacceptable variability.

We are using an accelerometer with Bluetooth wireless technology and a threshold filter to measure arm movements. It is being worn by healthy individuals wearing accelerometers while they carry out their usual activities at home.   The accelerometer data are transformed; the raw value recorded for a given epoch is set to a constant if it exceeds a low threshold. The threshold-filtered recordings measure the duration of movement accurately and with very little variability. Programming is being undertaken to permit the identification of specific types of upper limb activity, e.g. bringing food to the mouth, reaching to objects, dressing.

We plan to use threshold-filtered accelerometer recordings for objectively measuring the amount of real-world upper-extremity movement as an index of treatment outcome for stroke patients.

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