Muscle Tonus Evaluation in Patients with Neurological Disorders: A Scoping Review

Purpose The aim of this work is to provide an overview of studies that explore methods of assessment for muscle tone in patients with neurological disorders. Methods A scoping review was conducted on the PubMed, IEEE/IET Electronic Library, Web of Science, Scopus, Cochrane, Bireme, Google Scholar, and Science Direct databases. The characteristics analyzed were types of tonus; neurological disorder diagnosis; the method used for assessing muscle tone and the muscle under evaluation. The search found a total of 1593 studies, and after the filtering process, 84 were selected. Results The most reported method for assessing muscle tonus was the Modified Ashworth Scale, applied to post-stroke patients. Only two studies evaluated patients with hypotonia. Some studies presented quantitative devices for the evaluation as an alternative to the most commonly used methods.The most evaluated muscles were the elbow and the knee flexors. Conclusion The results show the importance of properly assessing the different types of muscle tone, and show a lack in evaluating hypotonia. The results also demonstrate the need to create new devices that provide more objective and reliable methods that can evaluate more than one type of tonus.