Development of the circumduction metric for identification of cervical motion impairment

Abstract

Introduction Chronic neck pain results in considerable personal, clinical, and societal burden. It consistently ranks among the top three pain-related reasons for seeking healthcare. Despite its prevalence, neck pain is difficult to both assess and treat. Quantitative approaches are required since diagnostic imaging techniques rarely provide information on movement-related neck pain, and most common clinical assessment tools are limited to single plane motion measurement. Methods In this study, the ability of an inertial measurement unit to document the cervical motion characteristics of 28 people with chronic neck pain and 23 healthy controls was assessed. A total of six circumduction metrics and one neck circumduction trajectory model were proposed as identification metrics. Results Five metrics demonstrated significant differences between the two groups. The neck circumduction trajectory model successfully distinguished between the two groups. Discussion The evaluation of the proposed metrics provides proof of concept that novel metrics can be captured with relative ease in the clinical setting using an inexpensive wearable sensor headband. The derivation of the proposed model may open new lines of inquiry into the clinical utility of assessing the multiplanar movement of cervical circumduction. The results obtained from this study also provide additional insight for the development of a sensitive, quantifiable and real-world neck evaluation strategies.

Head kinematics in patients with neck pain compared to asymptomatic controls: a systematic review

“…Only three studies provided a sample size calculation [57,59,75]. Two studies gave no description of the definition for the control group [71,83]. Eleven studies had missing information on the reliability of outcome measurements [57, 58, 61, 63, 67, 72-74, 77, 82, 83].…”

“…All 27 included studies were cross-sectional studies, with sample sizes ranging from 20 to 167. Nine studies reported on INP exclusively [58,59,63,66,67,71,72,78,79], eight studies on WAD only [57, 61, 64, 68-70, 77, 80], six studies assessed outcomes for WAD and INP separately [60,62,65,75,76,81], while another four studies reported on unclassified NP [73,74,82,83]. Eight studies, that included patients after WAD [60,69,70,[73][74][75][76][77] did not report on a specific grade according to the Quebec Task classification [84], while another eight studies included patients after WAD grade I [61,62,64,65,68,81], grade II [57,61,62,64,65,68,80,81], or grade III [57,61].…”

Paravertebral Muscle Mechanical Properties and Spinal Range of Motion in Patients with Acute Neck or Low Back Pain: A Case-Control Study

“…For instance, inertial motion units (IMUs) are small, cheap, accurate, reliable, and easy to apply in clinical practice [ 35 ]. These sensors have been validated for cervical, lumbar and hip analyses [ 36 , 37 ] and have been able to differentiate the lumbo-pelvic kinematics between healthy and back pain populations [ 3 ], and to classify subtypes of traumatic injuries in the cervical spine [ 38 ]. However, few studies have focused on the relationship between the kinematics of the neck or lower back with clinical scales [ 39 ], and most of them have focused only on chronic spinal pain populations [ 33 , 38 , 39 ].…”

DYSKIMOT: An Ultra-Low-Cost Inertial Sensor to Assess Head’s Rotational Kinematics in Adults during the Didren-Laser Test

“…Various noninvasive three-dimensional motion capture systems are used in the field of cervical research in order to evaluate kinematic variables going beyond simple range of motion such as speed, acceleration and deceleration using electrogoniometers [16], ultrasound waves [17], optical-based systems [18,19] and inertial sensors [20] and so on. Nevertheless, their dimension, complexity, and cost make such systems often difficult to use in clinical practice.…”