Background Approximately 60% of stroke survivors experience hand dysfunction limiting execution of daily activities. performed by analysing possible variations in guidelines describing angular and temporal aspects of hand kinematics and inter-joint, inter-digit coordination. Results The angular profiles of hand opening and closing were accurately characterized by the selected model, both in healthy settings and in stroke subjects (R2 > 0.973, RMSE < 2.0). Test-retest reliability was found to be superb, with ICC > 0.75 and remarking errors comparable to those acquired with other methods. Assessment with healthy settings exposed that hemiparetic hand movement was impaired not only in Indisulam (E7070) supplier bones ROM but also in the temporal aspects of motion: maximum velocities were significantly decreased, inter-digit coordination was reduced of more than 50% and Indisulam (E7070) supplier inter-joint coordination patterns were highly disrupted. In particular, the stereotypical proximal-to-distal opening sequence (reversed during hand closing) found in healthy subjects, was modified in stroke subjects who showed abnormally high delay between IPJ and MCPJ movement or reversed moving sequences. Conclusions The proposed method has proven to be a encouraging tool for any complete objective characterization of spatial and temporal aspects of hand movement in stroke, providing further information for a more targeted planning of the rehabilitation treatment to each specific patient and for a quantitative assessment of therapy’s end result. Background In the last decade, kinematic analysis of top limb motions has been progressively investigated [1,2]. Quantitative characterization of top limb motions are, indeed, highly required in medical study and practice, not only to obtain information about pathophysiological aspects of neural control but also to quantify impairment of top limbs, to strategy the appropriate restorative approach and to quantify the effectiveness of treatment [3]. This is particularly important in the case of stroke which is the best cause of disability in the adult worldwide with an estimated incidence of 16 million fresh cases per year [4]. Approximately 60% of stroke survivors experience top extremity dysfunction limiting execution of practical activities and self-employed participation in daily life [5]. Chronic deficits are especially common in the hand, as finger extension is the engine function most likely to be impaired [5]. Within recent years, progress in technology offers offered several devices and methods to objectively quantify hand kinematics [3]. The most common are electrogoniometers [6], instrumented gloves [7], electromagnetic systems [8] and optoelectronic kinematic analysers [9-12]. Some of these methods have been used for the evaluation Indisulam (E7070) supplier of anomalies in hand kinematics due to hand injury [9], focal dystonia [13] and stroke [8,11,14]. Most of these studies are mainly focused on the analysis of initial and final position of fingers during a specific movement to evaluate active range of motion, while there is still a lack of studies aimed at analysing temporal aspects of hand motion (i.e. the movement process) and multi-finger coordination that is also highly impaired in people with JNKK1 stroke [15]. Motion coordination among long fingers (index to little finger) has been investigated in healthy subjects during unrestricted flexion/extension motions [16,17] and during object-grasping [18,19]. Analysis of temporal aspects of these multi-joints motions revealed the living of task-specific motion coordination patterns between metacarpophalangeal bones (MCPJ) and proximal interphalangeal bones (IPJ) of digits 2-5. In particular, a proximal-to-distal sequence (i.e. MCPJ start moving first, followed by IPJ) was noticed during free hand opening [16] and hand opening before cylinder-grasping [18], while a reversed sequence (i.e. Indisulam (E7070) supplier IPJ-MCPJ sequence) was found during unrestricted hand closing [16]. Temporal coordination of finger motion during the movement to grasp an object was analysed also by Santello et al [19] in unimpaired individuals. Their results shown a high degree of covariation among the rotations of the MCPJ and IPJ of long fingers. Specifically, all joint of the same type (i.e. MCPJ and IPJ) tended to extend and flex collectively,.