| 1. |
- Aasa, Björn, et al.
(author)
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Acuity of goal-directed arm movements and movement control : evaluation of differences between patients with persistent neck/shoulder pain and healthy controls
- 2022
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In: European Journal of Physiotherapy. - : Routledge. - 2167-9169 .- 2167-9177. ; 24:1, s. 47-55
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: The main aim was to examine whether patients with persistent upper quadrant pain have higher end-point variability in goal directed pointing movements than pain-free controls when the pointing task is performed in total darkness and under full vision. An additional aim was to study associations between the magnitude of end-point variability and a clinical movement control test battery and self-rated functioning among patients.Methods: Seventeen patients and 17 age- and gender-matched pain-free controls performed a pointing task that evaluated end-point variability of repetitive shoulder movements in horizontal adduction and abduction with full vision, and abduction with no visual information, completed a movement control test battery of neck and shoulder control tests and answered questionnaires.Results: Patients had higher end point variability for horizontal abduction when performed with no visual information. For horizontal adduction the variability was higher, but only when it was controlled for movement time. No significant correlations were found between end-point variability and self-rated functioning, nor between end-point variability and neuromuscular control of the glenohumeral joint.Conclusions: This study provides preliminary evidence that patients with persistent neck/shoulder pain can partly compensate proprioceptive deficits in goal-directed arm movement when visual feedback is present.
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| 2. |
- Björklund, Martin, 1961-, et al.
(author)
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Cervico-thoracic and cranio-cervical strength differences between women with and without neck pain and the diagnostic performance of neck-strength tests
- 2019
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In: World Confederation for physical Therapy Congress 2019, Geneva 10-13 May.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Cervical strength and stability is often addressed in rehabilitation of people with neck pain. These functions may be associated with emergence and retention of neck pain in cases where the neck strength does not meet daily demands. However, clear empiric support for these notions are lacking, partly due to a scarcity of well controlled dynamometry studies with large samples. First, clarification is needed whether neck strength is in fact reduced in people with neck pain and to resolve the diagnostic performance of neck strength tests.Purpose: To compare neck muscle strength of women with non-specific long-term neck pain and healthy controls. Also, to assess the diagnostic performance of neck strength tests by assessing their discriminative ability to discern women with and without neck pain.Methods: The study had a cross-sectional design with data on cervical strength derived from the baseline measurement of a randomized controlled trial (RCT). 80 women with long-term non-specific neck pain (NP) were compared with 40 healthy women (CON). The NP group was a subsample from the RCT selected so that there were no group differences (NP-CON) for body weight and physical activity. Cervical strength assessment included dynamometry of cervico-thoracic extension (CTE) and flexion (CTF) in sitting and cranio-cervical flexion (CCF) in standing, all performed with isometric maximum voluntary contraction (iMVC). Independent samples Mann-Whitney U test and T-test were used to assess group differences for iMVC of the tests. Diagnostic accuracy was further assessed with a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve by plotting the true positive rate (sensitivity) as a function of the false positive rate (1 - specificity). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) with 95% confidence interval was used to determine discriminative ability of the tests. The optimal cut-off value to discern NP from CON with corresponding sensitivity and specificity was also determined.Results: Women with neck pain produced significant lower iMVC in CTE (28%), CTF (26%) and CCF (33%) (all p< 0.001). The ability of CTE, CTF and CCF to discriminate between NP and CON showed moderate accuracy (AUC 0.83, 0.78 and 0.73, respectively). The cut-off value of 165.7 N in CTE had a sensitivity of 0.725 and a specificity of 0.8. The corresponding values for CTF and CCF were 85.8 N (sensitivity 0.8; specificity 0.692) and 4.2 Nm (sensitivity 0.575; specificity 0.9).Conclusion(s): The neck pain group had less neck muscle strength than controls in all tests. The diagnostic performance of the neck strength tests, judged as discriminative ability to discern neck pain from control participants, were moderate. These results support earlier findings of reduced neck strength in people with neck pain. Also, neck strength tests may have a complementary value in the assessment of neck pain persons.Implications: The results highlights that impaired neck strength, both in global cervico-thoracic and deep cranio-cervical muscles, is most likely a characteristic of people with long-term neck pain. The study also shows that strength tests could be used with fairly good discriminative precision and may thereby be valuable assessment tools.
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| 3. |
- Bäckström, Anna, et al.
(author)
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Atypical motor planning in an interpersonal context in 9-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
- 2023
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In: 35th EACD Annual meeting European Academy of Childhood Disability. - : European Academy of Childhood Disability. ; , s. 254-254
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Introduction: Motor planning deviances may negatively affect interpersonal motor interactions in ASD, although detailed studies are sparse. This study examined motor planning kinematics in an interpersonal and non-interpersonal context in 9-year-old children with ASD and neurotypical peers.Patients and methods: Twelve children with ASD and 17 controls performed two different sequential manual tasks (preferred hand): grasping and placing a peg on a wooden disc (non-interpersonal) or in the hand of an examiner (interpersonal). Three-dimensional kinematic recordings of arm/hand movements were performed. Group and task differences were explored for total movement duration (MD), and for peak velocity (PV) and placement of peak velocity (PPV) during reach-to-grasp and transport-to-place movements, respectively.Results: Task differences were found in terms of longer MD and higher transport-to-place-PV in the disc- compared to hand-task. An interaction effect was evident for reach-to-grasp-PPV, where the control-group, but not ASD, had earlier reach-to-grasp-PPV and longer relative deceleration in the hand-task compared to the disc-task.Conclusion: Results show that the interpersonal context influenced initial reach-to-grasp motor planning in the control-group, but not the ASD-group. Later in the sequential movement (transport-to-place), the interpersonal context seemed to influence motor planning independent of group. Taken together, this indicates support towards a more careful peg-placing in the interpersonal hand-task in the control-group but much less clearly so in the ASD-group.Relevance for users and families: Atypical motor planning may influence motor interaction with peers. Investigations of motor planning and movement organization in ASD could thus inform interventions also targeting interpersonal exchange.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Bäckström, Anna, et al.
(author)
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Motor imagery ability in 7-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder
- 2020
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Introduction: Knowledge about motor imagery (MI) ability in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is limited and inconclusive in young children with ASD. The aim of the current study was to investigate MI ability in 7-year-old children with ASD.Patients and methods: Thirteen children with ASD and 13 typically developing (TD) children performed a computerized hand laterality judgement task (HLJ) and a non-corporeal visual imagery (VI) control task. All participants passing a criterion test performed the tasks with images at 4 different rotational increments to vary the MI biomechanical demands (HLJ task) or VI angle rotational demands (VI task). Response times (RT) and accuracy were extracted.Results: Four children with ASD did not pass the HLJ criterion test and one failed the VI criterion test. The ASD-group had evidently more incorrect responses than TD on both tasks. Analyses of RT showed a biomechanical effect in the MI task and an angle increment effect in the VI task in both groups. Children with ASD had longer RT than TD children on VI but not MI tasks. Conclusion: Findings suggest that both the ASD and control children used MI to solve the HLJ task. However, failures to pass the HLJ criterion test and the increased error rate in the ASD group indicate that MI ability is weaker in young children with autism than TD controls. Notably, a large individual variability in employment of MI within the ASD group was found, ranging from functional, fractional but existing, to absent MI ability.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Bäckström, Anna, et al.
(author)
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Motor planning and movement execution during goal-directed sequential manual movements in 6-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder : A kinematic analysis
- 2021
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In: Research in Developmental Disabilities. - : Elsevier. - 0891-4222 .- 1873-3379. ; 115
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Atypical motor functioning is prevalent in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Knowledge of the underlying kinematic properties of these problems is sparse.Aims: To investigate characteristics of manual motor planning and performance difficulties/diversity in children with ASD by detailed kinematic measurements. Further, associations between movement parameters and cognitive functions were explored.Methods and procedures: Six-year-old children with ASD (N = 12) and typically developing (TD) peers (N = 12) performed a sequential manual task comprising grasping and fitting a semi-circular peg into a goal-slot. The goal-slot orientation was manipulated to impose different motor planning constraints. Movements were recorded by an optoelectronic system.Outcomes and results: The ASD-group displayed less efficient motor planning than the TD-group, evident in the reach-to-grasp and transport kinematics and less proactive adjustments of the peg to the goal-slot orientations. The intra-individual variation of movement kinematics was higher in the ASD-group compared to the TD-group. Further, in the ASD-group, movement performance associated negatively with cognitive functions.Conclusions and implications: Planning and execution of sequential manual movements proved challenging for children with ASD, likely contributing to problems in everyday actions. Detailed kinematic investigations contribute to the generation of specific knowledge about the nature of atypical motor performance/diversity in ASD. This is of potential clinical relevance.
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| 8. |
- Bäckström, Anna, et al.
(author)
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Visuomotor integration in action planning in 7-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder
- 2022
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In: Specia issue: Abstracts of the 34th annual meeting of the European Academy of Childhood Disability (EACD) Barcelona, Spain 18-21 May 2022. - : Mac Keith Press. ; , s. 65-65
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Introduction: Difficulties with action planning and visuomotor integration may contribute to atypical motorfunctioning in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), although detailed studies of sensorimotorintegration in action planning are sparse. This ongoing study investigates visuomotor integration in actionplanning in 7-year-old children with and without ASD.Patients and methods: A sub-sample of 6 children with ASD and 6 typically developing (TD) controls wereincluded. Recordings of gaze synchronized with 3D kinematic registration were made during performance of amanual sequential peg rotation task with variations in goal insertion complexity. Group differences and relations between movement duration and number of gaze shifts over the sequential movement phases(latency, reach-to-grasp, grasp, and transport-to-fit) were explored.Results: No significant group differences were found for either movement duration or number of gaze shifts.When controlling for the between-participants variance, total number of gaze shifts and number of gaze shiftsin reach-to-grasp were related to movement duration in the initial phases of the movement in the TD-group but not in the ASD-group.Conclusion: The results indicate that, whilst performance measures were similar between groups, the overallpattern of visuomotor integration was related to feed-forward movement processes in the sequentialmovement in the TD-group but not in the ASD-group. This finding adds support to previous suggestions thatvisuomotor integration underpinning action planning may operate differently in ASD. Synchronizedexamination of gaze and detailed movement registration appears as a promising methodology for detailed investigation of visuomotor integration in action planning.
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| 9. |
- Domellöf, Erik, 1970-, et al.
(author)
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Brain activations during execution and observation of visually guided sequential manual movements in autism and in typical development : A study protocol
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Motor issues are frequently observed accompanying core deficits in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Impaired motor behavior has also been linked to cognitive and social abnormalities, and problems with predictive ability have been suggested to play an important, possibly shared, part across all these domains. Brain imaging of sensory-motor behavior is a promising method for characterizing the neurobiological foundation for this proposed key trait. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) developmental study, involving children/youth with ASD, typically developing (TD) children/youth, and neurotypical adults, will investigate brain activations during execution and observation of a visually guided, goal-directed sequential (two-step) manual task. Neural processing related to both execution and observation of the task, as well as activation patterns during the preparation stage before execution/observation will be investigated. Main regions of interest include frontoparietal and occipitotemporal cortical areas, the human mirror neuron system (MNS), and the cerebellum.
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| 10. |
- Domellöf, Erik, 1970-, et al.
(author)
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Brain activations during execution and observation of visually guided sequential manual movements in autism and in typical development: A study protocol
- 2024
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In: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 19:6
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Motor issues are frequently observed accompanying core deficits in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Impaired motor behavior has also been linked to cognitive and social abnormalities, and problems with predictive ability have been suggested to play an important, possibly shared, part across all these domains. Brain imaging of sensory-motor behavior is a promising method for characterizing the neurobiological foundation for this proposed key trait. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) developmental study, involving children/youth with ASD, typically developing (TD) children/youth, and neurotypical adults, will investigate brain activations during execution and observation of a visually guided, goal-directed sequential (two-step) manual task. Neural processing related to both execution and observation of the task, as well as activation patterns during the preparation stage before execution/observation will be investigated. Main regions of interest include frontoparietal and occipitotemporal cortical areas, the human mirror neuron system (MNS), and the cerebellum.
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