Haptic interface as a tool for assessment of rehabilitation outcome

There is still no agreement on rehabilitation of children and adults after an amputation of the upper limb. The main problems are when to start with prosthetic fitting of children with congenital deficiency of an upper limb and which type of prosthesis to use (both for adults and children). The absence of objective methods for measurement and assessment of rehabilitation outcome make the decissions and comparisson of different rehabilitation programmes almost impossible. The assessment of rehabilitation outcome is nowadays mainly based on the use of different questionnaires about prosthetic use. In the project we will choose and develope the outcome measures for measurement the impairement, activitiy limitations, participation, quality of life and satisfaction with the prosthesis for adults and children based on ICF criteria (WHO 2000). Thirty children and 200 adluts after an upper limb amputation will be assessed with haptic interface (PHANTOM Premium 1.5 haptic interface) and choosen measures. The results will be statistically analysed by SPSS. We will answer the following questions: 1.Are the results of haptic interface in correlation with the choosen measures 2.Which measures are the best for measurement and assessemnt at the level of activity limitation, quality of life and satisfaction with the prosthesis 3.Does training in the virtual environment improve the outcome and shorten the time of rehabilitation 4.Does the training of myoelectric signals in virtual environment decresase the phantom pain 5.Which paramethers of imapirement have the greatest influence on the decission about the prosthetic components used The measures will be the basis of further clinical work with subjets after an amputation of the upper limb. They will be used for the new patients and also for those with amputation from the past. Only with objective measurement methods we can argument the decission of the type of proshtesis and choosen components and also compare different rehabilitation programmes.