Evaluation of the cognitive-motor performance of adults with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy in a hand-related task

PLoS One. 2020 Jan 31;15(1):e0228128. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228128. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

Duchenne muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is a progressive degenerative muscle disease, affecting, among others, the upper extremities. Effective hand rehabilitation can improve the hand function of people with DMD. To reach this goal, we first need to gain more insight into the hand cognitive-motor performance of people with DMD. This is the first study employing a systematic analysis on multi-finger, cognitive-motor performance of people with DMD. For this purpose, we propose an active dynamic visuo-motor task. The task employed six visual stimuli, a subset of which was activated at each trial. The stimuli were activated with a frequency of 1, 2, 3 and 4 Hz. Eight healthy participants and three participants with DMD performed the task. Additionally, the healthy participants performed seven sessions, and we assessed the training effects. Task-related cognitive-motor performance was evaluated using information transfer rate (ITR) and perceived workload. Regarding ITR, healthy participants performed significantly better than DMD participants; however, this was more evident for trials involving more than three fingers. Workload showed no difference between the healthy and the DMD groups. Healthy participants significantly improved their performance during training. Our results suggest that hand rehabilitation of people with DMD should consider multi-finger dynamic training. However, additional research with more people with DMD is needed for further generalization of our conclusions.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Hand / physiopathology*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Muscular Dystrophy, Duchenne / physiopathology*
  • Psychomotor Performance*
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Flextension Foundation (http://www.flextension.nl/en/) through the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO https://www.nwo.nl/en), the Duchenne Parent Project (https://duchenne.nl/), Hankamp Rehab (http://www.hankamprehab.nl/), Spieren voor Spieren (https://www.spierenvoorspieren.nl/), TMSi (https://www.tmsi.com/), Festo (https://www.festo.com) and Pontes Medical (https://www.pontesmedical.com/), all awarded to BFJMK. Grant Number: 13525. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.