Résumé
Stroke limits the capacity of the central nervous system to integrate sensory inputs for the execution of specific voluntary movements in response to task demands. Functional limitations are usually quantified with clinical evaluations, but it is unclear how these scores assess the effectiveness of visuomotor feedback in goal-oriented behaviors. The objective is to quantify the effectiveness of visuomotor feedback in individuals with stroke, using a circular steering task. 9 healthy volunteers and 9 stroke victims were recruited for a 30 minutes session. Each participant performed a circular steering task with a total of 6 trials, organized into 2 hands x 3 repetitions. We measured the Index of Effective Performance (IPe, in bit/s), which measure the effectiveness of visuomotor feedback. We found that the circular steering task can quantify the quality of sensorimotor integration which reflects the effectiveness of sensory feedback. Finally, our preliminary results confirm a decrease of the effectiveness of sensorimotor feedback for the nondominant and for the paretic upper limb. These results need to be supplemented with a larger number of participants. Age-specific norms might also help quantify the possibilities of improvement for each patient, to guide therapists in the rehabilitation strategy of motor control of the upper limbs after stroke.