Supplemental vibrotactile feedback control of stabilization and reaching actions of the arm using limb state and position error encodings.
Alexis R Krueger, Psiche Giannoni, Valay Shah and 2 others
PMID 28464891WHAT IT FOUND
In healthy adults, vibration on the opposite arm reduced hand drift and improved reaching without vision.
After training, feedback about target error helped reaching more than feedback about hand position and speed. This is not evidence for stroke therapy.
Key findings
01Informative vibration on the non-moving arm reduced hand drift during stabilization in healthy adults, while sham vibration did not.
02Vibration that combined 80% hand position information and 20% hand velocity information gave the best stabilization and starting-target reaching performance after limited exposure.
03After approximately 45 minutes of training, vibration about target error improved reach accuracy and precision more than vibration about hand position and velocity.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The participants were healthy adults, not stroke survivors, so the findings may not transfer to patients with impaired limb position sense. The tasks were performed with a robotic manipulandum in a lab, not with wearable technology in daily life. Tactor placement had to be individualized in 16 of the 26 participants, and one participant was replaced because she could not discriminate vibrations. The study did not test long-term training or whether the feedback would be used outside the lab. The study did not determine whether the vibration feedback could track the faster robotic forces.
Declared interests
The article reports funding from the Whitaker International Fellows and Scholars Program, the European Commission, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Unit for Scientific and Technological Cooperation, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that vibrotactile feedback improves arm control in stroke patients. The study tested healthy adults in a laboratory, and the authors say the approach still needs testing in stroke survivors.