Background: Upper limb impairments post-stroke significantly affect quality of life, necessitating accurate assessment tools for effective rehabilitation. Fisher’s Upper Limb Movement Assessment (FULMA) system offers a novel approach, integrating metric and score outputs to meet the complex needs of rehabilitation assessment and planning.
Aims: To conduct a process evaluation of FULMA, designed for assessing and planning rehabilitation for individuals with post-stroke upper limb impairments.
Methods: In July 2023, three Zoom focus groups were held to discuss FULMA’s outputs, uses, and capabilities. The participants were nine clinicians from various clinical backgrounds with over ten years of experience (77.78%, range: 4 to 20+yrs). Participants were predominantly female (77.78%). The qualitative methodology included transcription, familiarization, coding, theme identification, and validation through member checking and triangulation.
Results: Clinicians highlighted the usefulness of FULMA's dual output system—metrics for in-depth assessment and therapy planning, and scores for patient feedback and documentation. Despite acknowledging its broad applicability across various conditions, concerns about potential information overload and the necessity for a user-friendly interface were highlighted. Recommendations for improvement focused on enhancing portability, incorporating pressure sensors, and employing inertial measurement units for detailed motor assessments.
Conclusion: The FULMA system's innovative approach to quantifying upper limb function has significant potential to revolutionize clinical assessments and rehabilitation planning. Process evaluation revealed the importance of integrating clinician feedback into tool development, ensuring it meets patient and practitioner needs. Based on these insights, further refinement and research are required to optimize FULMA's features, emphasizing simplicity and clinical utility.