Evaluation of impaired fingertip texture discrimination and wrist position sense in patients affected by stroke: comparison of clinical and new quantitative measures.

Discriminative sensory loss is common following stroke but may not be adequately detected by routine clinical measures. Quantitative tests of texture discrimination and limb position sense have been recently developed. These tests provide reliable estimates of discrimination, differentiate impaired performance following stroke, and have standardized criteria of abnormality. The purpose of this study was to compare predictions of impairment based on current clinical measures with predictions based on these quantitative, standardized measures. Thirty-five patients who had strokes were tested on the new quantitative measures and clinical measures of texture discrimination and limb position sense. The findings indicated poor agreement between impairment defined using current clinical measures and statistically abnormal performance on the new quantitative, norm-referenced measures. The findings suggest that the quantitative tests may provide additional assessment information to supplement that of the existing clinical measures of texture discrimination and limb position sense. Further development of these new quantitative measures is indicated.