Kinematic evaluation of horizontal reaching movements in rotator cuff disease during robotic rehabilitation

Upper limb reaching movements (RM) are the most used motor task in robotic rehabilitation treatments of several disorders of the arm and the shoulder. Robotic rehabilitation allow to record quantitative data about movement patterns that can help clinicians to better address the rehabilitation protocols providing information not captured using clinical measures, but the biomechanical parameters proposed until today, to evaluate the quality of the movement, are related to the specific robot used and to the type of exercise performed and are not yet standardized. In this paper a quantitative kinematic assessment of robot assisted upper arm free reaching movements is proposed. Particularly, the effect of rotator cuff tendinopathy on kinematic patterns during horizontal movements has been evaluated