Advance in Assessment of Upper Limb and Hand Motor Function in Patients after Stroke (review) / 中国康复理论与实践

ABSTRACT

@#Patients often suffered limb dysfunction after stroke. Upper limb and hand function recovered more slowly than lower limb, and became one of the research focuses in rehabilitation medicine. Timely and effective assessments were important to guide the rehabilitation treatment, evaluate the treatment efficacy and predict functional recovery of upper extremity and hand function. The assessment methods of upper limb and hand motor function included subjective evaluations and objective evaluations. The former included different kinds of scales, which involved assessment focusing on muscle, motor pattern, change of upper limb and hand function. While the latter contained biomechanics, neuroelectrophysiology, functional magnetic resonance imaging, upper limb robotic evaluation system and so on. Scales were proved to have good reliability and validity. But they could not show patients' function accurately because of the subjectivity, and the data could not be kept. Evaluation system with computer was applied in clinical practice more and more widely. In this review, we summarized the assessments on upper limb and hand motor function in patients after stroke.