IMU-based assessment of knee spasticity to improve reliability of Modified Tardieu Scale in cerebral palsy

Abstract

This thesis proposes a method for IMU-based assessment of cerebral palsy spasticity to improve reliability. The inertial measurement unit (IMU) has several advantages including light weight, simplicity of measurement, and ease of movement. The IMU measures degree of each segment using a combination of accelerometer and gyroscope. Through acquired degree, joint angle can be obtained. To confirm accuracy of joint angle measurement using IMU, each results were compared using motion capture system. To compare reliability of conventional measurement used in the clinical trial and IMU-based assessment, the experiment was conducted by targeting children with cerebral palsy. To evaluate reliability, three raters are participated in experiment. Then it is proved that IMU-based assessment is possible to improve the reliability than conventional methods by using analysis of correlation intra-rater and inter-rater. Through the result, confirm the factors that affect the reliability. However, because of the limitation of a small number of the subjects and applying only one of the joints, more patients and measurer, then research to determine the reliability of the other joint are needed. ⓒ 2015 DGIST