Simultaneous arm joint angles and force changes in writer's cramp

Abstract

In this paper, a novel tool is suggested which allows to simultaneously record arm joint angles and the applied forces of patients with writer's cramp during the performance of multiple writing and drawing tasks. The presented tool identifies the role of the upper limb joints and exerted forces once a cramping event happens. Over the past decade different kinematic analyses have been introduced in patients with writer's cramp, but it is still unknown how the kinematic measures change during cramping events. Our goal is to investigate if such kinematic assessment can show consistent abnormalities among patients. The preliminary results show the feasibility of using such kinematic tool to fully assess the performance of the patients with writer's cramp.