Résumé
Stroke limits the capacity of the central nervous system to integrate sensory inputs for the execution of specific voluntary movement in response to task demands. Functional limitations are usually quantified with clinical scales, but it is unclear how clinical scores relate to the integration of sensory feedback into motor control loops. We use a circular steering task to quantify the effectiveness of continuous visuomotor feedback in goal-oriented behaviors. The objective was to provide baseline values in a population of healthy individuals who are comparable in age and gender with persons with stroke.19 Healthy volunteers were recruited into 2 groups: [>75 years old]; [≤75 years old]. Each participant had to follow a circular path as fast as possible with 2 to 6% of errors. They performed a total of 20 trials (20s each), organized into 2 blocks x 2 hands x 5 repetitions. We measured the Index of Effective Performance (IPe, in bit/s), which measure the effectiveness of visuomotor feedback.These preliminary results need to be supplemented with a larger number of participants to define age- and gender-specific norms for comparison with individuals with stroke. The index of effective performance in a circular steering task quantifies the information throughput, which is a probe into the effectiveness of visuomotor feedback. Reference values in healthy people will help quantify the possibilities of improvement for each patient, to guide therapists in the rehabilitation strategy of motor control of the upper limbs after a stroke.