One of the activities that study participants wearing a prosthesis were tasked with was turning over a block. (Photo courtesy of Georgia Institute of Technology)
Upper-limb amputees may have more success learning how to use their prostheses if fellow amputees teach them, a new study suggests.
The study, conducted by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, measured arm movements and analyzed brain patterns in non-amputee participants who watched videos about how to use upper-limb prostheses, according to a media release from Georgia Institute of Technology.
The participants in the study—published recently in the journal Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair—wore an elbow-to-hand prosthesis (a split hook device) with movement sensors embedded onto the elbow, which was designed to limit forearm and wrist movement. They also wore an EEG cap on their heads, per the release.
On the first day, participants tried various tasks (rotating a block, flipping a spatula, writing) with the device. For the next 3 days, they watched 30-second videos of someone demonstrating the same tasks. The person on video either wore the same device or didn’t wear anything on their arm. On the fifth day, participants tried each task again, the release explains.
“Those who watched a matched-limb participant did significantly better after 3 days of training,” says Lewis Wheaton, an associate professor in the School of Applied Physiology at Georgia Institute of Technology, who led the study, in the release.
“Their arm movements were more consistent and fluid when they repeated the task. Those who only watched someone without a prosthesis didn’t improve at all,” he adds in the release.
During the study, Wheaton noticed differences in the brain patterns among the participants watching the persons on video demonstrating the tasks.
Among the participants watching someone wearing a prosthesis teaching them, the areas of the brain involved with motor planning were most active. Among participants watching an able-bodied person teaching them, their brain’s visual areas were most dominant, the release explains.
“When amputees watch someone without a prosthesis, it seems that their brain is more concerned with what it’s seeing, rather than concentrating on how to actually do the task,” Wheaton states.
Per the release, this current study looked at non-amputee participants watching videos. Wheaton’s next step will be to determine whether the results from this study could be consistent with different types of prostheses for other parts of the body.
[Source(s): Georgia Institute of Technology, EurekAlert]
