Table 3.
Individual participant characteristics (n = 9).
Fig 1.
Implementation of the multimodal system during clinical spasticity assessment in the upper limb.
The physiotherapist is shown using the FSR-equipped sensorized glove and wears an IMU on the wrist, while the patient is instrumented with an IMU on the distal forearm and sEMG electrodes placed over the biceps brachii muscle.
Fig 2.
Schematic sequence of the passive elbow evaluation protocol.
(A) Slow stretch (V1) from maximal flexion to determine R2. (B) Transition phase toward joint extension. (C) Fast stretch (V3) to elicit the spastic reflex and determine the R1 or “catch” angle. The system includes FSR sensors in the evaluator’s glove, an IMU on the forearm, and an sEMG system over the biceps brachii.
Fig 3.
Temporal synchronization between the filtered sEMG signal of the biceps and the generalized force (Qj) during fast stretching.
Fig 4.
Three-dimensional mapping of the generalized force(Qj), angular position (θ), and mean angular velocity (ω).
Table 1.
Simple indicators for spasticity assessment.
Fig 5.
Methodological framework for Composite Index (CI) construction.
Table 2.
P-values between simple indicators.
Fig 6.
Three-dimensional representation of the principal component analysis (PCA) applied to the normalized indicators.
The three dimensions explain 83.85% of the total variance.
Table 4.
Factor loading matrix for the simple indicators.
Fig 7.
Sensitivity coefficients for each simple indicator contributing to the CI: AUC Force (R2), AUC Force (R1), AUC sEMG (R2), AUC sEMG (R1), AUC Velocity (R2), and AUC Velocity (R1).
Fig 8.
Composite Index values for evaluated patients.
The suffix “s” denotes the contralateral non-spastic side.
Fig 9.
Scatter plots between pairs of simple indicators (AUC values for force, velocity and sEMG) for the spastic limb.
Key findings from the analysis include.
Table 5.
One-way ANOVA results applied to the CI.
Fig 10.
Descriptive comparison of composite performance (Id) across clinical levels of the MTS, considering only body regions affected by muscle tone abnormalities.
Each point indicates the mean for levels 2 (blue), 3 (gray), and 4 (red), with corresponding standard error of the mean (SEM).