Robotic Assessments of Proprioception and the Impact of Age

We examined different methods of robotic proprioception assessment and provided comparison with the wrist position sense test gold standard assessment. The aim is to determine which of the assessments are the most reliable and would be acceptable for clinical evaluation. 31 children between six and sixteen participated in a pilot assessment trial and completed all four of the assessments. The assessments included the manual and robotic versions of the wrist position sense test, the joint position matching assessment and the psychometric threshold determination assessment. There was not a significant difference between the manual and robotic wrist position sense tests but there were significant differences with the other assessments. The study also examined the effect of age on the different assessments and found that three of the assessments, excluding the joint position matching assessment, can differentiate between children of different ages. This study concludes that the significant differences between the assessments indicates that proprioception in the wrist is complex and multifaceted. Further studies will likely need to include multiple assessments to gain a more complete understanding of proprioception.