A Novel Tool for Quantitative Assessment of Lower Limb Proprioception with Healthy Adults, Elderly, and Stroke Survivors

Abstract

Stroke survivors and elderly often suffer from proprioceptive impairments that may contribute to disabilities in walking. Current clinical assessments of proprioception are often subjective and not accurate, and the treatment mainly focuses on the motor impairments. Here, we developed a novel tool for proprioception assessment of the lower-limb with a magnetic tracking system. We designed a protocol for assessing proprioception in both lower-limbs using position-matching and position-recall tests. We validated the tool by examining young adults, elderly and stroke survivors. By examining the Mean Absolute Error and Bias, significant differences were found between the elderly and the young adults in the position-matching tasks. This indicates that position-matching may be effective as a screening phase in identifying proprioceptive impairments of the lower limb.