Abstract
Independent living requires manipulating tools, such as using a knife to slice a piece of bread. However, people with apraxia (~60% of left hemisphere stroke patients) are unable to use tools and objects in daily life activities. The Waterloo-Sunnybrook Apraxia Battery assesses patients' ability to perform ADL gestures. To create normative profiles for comparisons, 10 healthy right-handed participants both pantomimed (pretended) tool use and used physical tools for transitive gestures from the Apraxia Battery bimanually. Hand positions were optoelectronically recorded for 3 trials. For the gesture of "hammering to pound a nail", the planar range covered by the preferred hand (range YZ [right object] = 33.10mm, 137.30mm; range YZ [right pant] = 270.22mm, 378.32mm) was smaller than that of the non-preferred hand (range YZ [left object] = 79.59mm, 217.64mm; range YZ [left pant] = 394.69mm, 428.30mm). Further, there was more controlled movement during actual tool use than pantomime (Figure 1), exhibited by a smaller range in position (range YZ [right object] = 33.10mm, 137.30mm; range YZ [left object] = 79.59mm, 217.64mm). Pantomiming produced a greater trajectory of movement (range YZ [right pant] = 270.22mm, 378.32mm; range YZ [left pant] = 394.69mm, 428.30mm). These trends are consistent across the subject pool. These findings suggest that considering variation in healthy persons will help to identify differing levels of variability in persons with apraxia.Acknowledgments: NSERC and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario