Kinect V2 implementation and testing of the reaching performance scale for motor evaluation of patients with neurological impairment

Automated procedures for neurological patients' motor evaluation may take advantage of the coupling between clinical scales and motion tracking devices to provide affordable, quantified and reliable assessment to be used in clinics, in surgeries and domestic environment. In this study, 20 post-stroke patients performed frontal reaching movements with their more affected limb, and a physician administered the Reaching Performance Scale (RPS) to assess motor functionality. At the same time, patients' kinematics were recorded with the Kinect V2 sensor. An automated algorithm was developed to compute the RPS based on Kinect V2 tracking data, and visual and Kinect V2 RPS scores were compared. Results showed very high statistical correlation between the automated procedure and the visual administration (Pearson Correlation Coefficient: R = 0.90, p < 0.001). While the number of patients is limited, the automated RPS seems to be successfully applicable to different levels of impairment, from mild to severe.