Relationships among Three Clinical Measures of Muscle Tone in Shoulders and Wrists of Patients with Poststroke Conditions

Abstract

French

The association among three measures of muscle hypertonus were studied in shoulder internal rotation and wrist flexion on 49 poststroke subjects. Measures used were resting joint position, resistance to passive movement, and the angle at which the resistance appeared. Subjects were tested while seated with the affected arm supported and free to move in an adapted suspension armsling. Five of the six pairs of measurements (three at each joint) showed statistically significant associations with correlations between -.922 and .668 (p < .05) though the conditions under which they appeared differed. Results suggest that shoulder resting joint position and shoulder resistance to passive movement might be used interchangeably when muscle tone is measured only or first at the shoulder joint. Patterns of correlations suggest that factors underlying resting joint position differ fundamentally from those underlying resistance to passive movement and the angle at which resistance appears.

Keywords

Cerebrovascular disorders Muscle hypertonia Muscle spasticity Positioning

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