Cognitive-motor testing
stroke, possibleTMT-B, ’
STROKE
To assess cognitive-motor performance TMT-A and TMT-B were performed by the participants with their less-affected arm, or in scenarios where there were bilateral lesions participants were instructed to use their preferred arm on a Kinarm end-point robot. The use of the less affected limb allowed us to assess cognitive performance without stroke related motor impairment affecting responses. TMT-A involves connecting dispersed numbered targets in ascending numerical order from ‘1’ to ‘25’ with linear reaching movements. The objective is to locate the next number and reach to it without touching any other numbers or connected lines from the already completed reaches. This test assesses cognitive-motor processing speed, in which the participant must visually navigate, identify the appropriate target, and execute a movement as fast and accurately as possibleTMT-B is similar to TMT-A in that it also involves searching and connecting targets in ascending order. However, TMT-B differs in that the task must be completed in an alternating numeric and alphabetic sequence, where the number ‘1’ must connect to the letter ‘A’, then ‘A’ must connect to the number ‘2’, until the final target number ‘13’ is reached, still equaling 25 total targets. The added complexity stresses the cognitive system and requires mental flexibility and task switching to complete. For TMT A and B, different sequences were used at pre-testing and 24 h-post to avoid any possible learning effects.Three metrics of task performance were assessed for TMT-A and TMT-B. First, to assess overall performance the task score at each time point was used. This metric provides a global measure of an individual’s performance. Specifically, the task score measures deviations from an individual’s best performance. Task scores are always positive with zero representing best performance and deviations from zero reflecting poorer performance (See Dexterit-E Explorer manual for more information—