Rehabilitation and Kinesiological Analysis of Motor Control in Grasp Yungher Don 1983 email@address.com Don Yungher author Craelius Bill Bill Craelius Advisory Committee chair Drezwiecki Gary Gary Drezwiecki Advisory Committee internal member Shinbrot Troy Troy Shinbrot Advisory Committee internal member Crandall Eileen Eileen Crandall Advisory Committee outside member Edwards Thomas Thomas Edwards Advisory Committee outside member Rutgers University degree grantor Graduate School - New Brunswick school Text theses 2010-01 English Rehabilitation of grasp following brain injury remains a challenge that is seldom completely successful. Current biofeedback protocols for fine motor rehabilitation are generally limited to single-muscle or single-joint movements, and their application to Activities of Daily Living (ADL) is constrained by the simplicity of motions feasible during training. Herein, a novel biofeedback device, termed Proprioception-Augmenting and Measurement Interface (PAMI) was used to train thumb-index opposition, a task relevant to ADL. PAMI uses a novel method to non-invasively measure muscle forces in the arm during grasp, using Surface Muscle Pressure (SMP). The efficacy of PAMI training was assessed using a standard therapeutic test, the 9-hole peg test. In addition, the neural control features of grasp were examined using motor variance analysis. Features of the PAMI signal were extracted from recorded signals and compared to clarify the mechanisms by which PAMI aids rehabilitation. Variability analysis of recorded SMP signals measured the effect of PAMI biofeedback on the coordination of muscle activity in impaired and healthy persons. Training with the PAMI device was shown to be effective in the short-term improvement of fine motor function for brain injured participants (p<.05), and the kinesiological mechanisms for this change were explored in terms of coordinated muscle activity. Biomedical Engineering Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations ETD ETD_2332 electronic application/pdf text/xml Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. application/x-tar 1046528 b0e7634017452273179009a98e76a0093faa964f ETD other windows xp The author owns the copyright to this work. Yungher Don Copyright Holder Permission or license 2009-12-22 15:02:34 Don Yungher Copyright holder Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick License Author Agreement License I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books. Copyright protected OpenPermission or license Metadata modification 2010-02-08T15:46:26 System Administrator Scholarly Communication Center MDCreator Rutgers University Libraries sccadmin@rci.rutgers.edu