A New Clinical Test for Cervicocephalic Kinesthetic Sensibility: "The Fly"
By Kristjansson, Eythor, PT, MNFF; Hardardottir, Lilja, PT; Asmundardottir, Matthildur, PT; Gudmundsson, Karl, PT; Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Vol. 85, No. 3, pp. 490-495Publication Date: March 2004
Study conducted to investigate the reliability and discriminative ability of a prototype test designed to detect the accuracy of neck movements for people with neuromuscular disabilities. A 3Space Fastrak system was used in the study. The Fastrak is a noninvasive electromagnetic measuring instrument that tracks the positions of sensors relative to a source. In this study, one sensor was placed on the forehead, and another was placed on the back of the head. The Fastrak was connected to a personal computer, and continually recorded the positions of the sensors relative to the source during the test. A software program called the Fly was written for the study to format and process the data for analysis. The program is used to calculate the difference between the location of the forehead sensor relative to the sensor on the back of the head, both vertically and horizontally. The data is used to indicate head movement on the computer monitor. The two-dimensional movement data is then processed by the Fly and projected into a square on the monitor. Two cursors are visible in the square: a blue on tracing unpredictable movement patterns, and a black one indicating head movement. The software program makes it possible to record the absolute distance between the two cursors during the entire test sequence, and to store the information. Twenty woman with chronic whiplash-associate disabilities participated in the study. Twenty more women with no history of whiplash served as the control group. A slowly moving object appeared on a computer screen and traced an unpredictable movement path that the participants were required to follow by moving their heads. Three randomly ordered movement patterns were tested. Better reliability was detected for the control group than for the group with whiplash-associated disorders. This led the researchers to conclude that the test could be used discriminate between people with and without neuromuscular disabilities.
Published by: W.B. Saunders Company, a division of Elsevier Health Sciences (Website:http://us.elsevierhealth.com)
American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (Web Site: http://www.aapmr.org/ )
American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine (Web Site: http://www.acrm.org )
