Relative independence of upper limb position sense and reaching in children with hemiparetic perinatal stroke.

The robot measured position sense and reaching at the shoulder and elbow, but many clinical sensory tests measured the hand and wrist, so the two sets of tests were not measuring exactly the same body parts. The study tested conscious position sense only, not unconscious position sense, which the paper says is also related to movement control. The study used strict statistical corrections, which can reduce the number of significant results. Some clinical data were missing, leaving smaller numbers for some comparisons, such as 31 children with both MACS and clinical sensory data. The stroke group had an equal number of left- and right-handed children, but the control group had only 10% left-handed children, which the paper says may make comparisons less meaningful. No treatment was tested, so the paper does not show whether therapy targeting position sense or reaching changes function.

Funding was from Alberta Innovates - Health Solutions. The supplied text does not report other conflicts of interest.

Do not conclude that position sense training will improve reaching, or that normal reaching means normal position sense. The study found no significant relationship between robot position-matching and reaching, and no treatment was tested.