Whole-body isometric force/torque measurements for functional assessment in neuro-rehabilitation: user interface and data pre-processing techniques

Abstract

A diagnostic platform for the early functional assessment of post-stroke patients was designed in order to perform isometric measurements during activities of daily living (ADL) tasks. The outcome of these measurements can contribute to verify the integrity of a post-stroke existing or altered "internal model" for a particular functional task. A complete and reliable software application for the diagnostic platform was designed, developed and tested in three European hospitals. The software application was divided into two main modules: a graphical user interface (GUI) and the data pre-processing techniques for the interpretation of recorded biomedical and clinical data. This paper presents the software application associated to the platform, aimed at analysing and interpreting the huge amount of data recorded and collected during the experimental trials. Its main objective is related to validating the onset detection and data reduction. The software application presented in this paper has been working and validated with success in three different clinical centres in Europe and it can be effectively used both as assessment tool in rehabilitation and as research tool in neuroscience.