PROJECT TITLE :

Unilateral Floor Stiffness Perturbations Systematically Evoke Contralateral Leg Muscle Responses: A New Approach to Robot-Assisted Gait Therapy

ABSTRACT:

A selection of robotic rehabilitation devices have been proposed for gait rehabilitation after stoke, however have solely produced moderate results when compared to traditional physiotherapy. We tend to recommend a completely unique approach to robotic interventions that takes advantage of mechanisms of inter-limb coordination. So as to test the viability of this approach, we tend to apply unilateral floor stiffness perturbations via a unique robotic device and observe evoked contralateral leg responses in kinematics, and muscle activations, in healthy subjects. The $64000-time control of floor stiffness is utilized to uniquely differentiate force and kinematic feedback, making novel sensory perturbations. We tend to gift results of repeatable and scalable evoked kinematic and muscular response of the unperturbed leg in healthy subjects. Moreover, we have a tendency to offer insight into the basic sensorimotor mechanisms of inter-leg coordination. We have a tendency to also lay the foundation for model-based mostly rehabilitation ways for impaired walkers by presenting a mathematical model that accurately describes the relationship between the magnitude of the stiffness perturbation and the evoked muscle activity. One in all the most vital advantages of this approach over current practices is the safety of the patient, since this does not need any direct manipulation of the impaired leg. The novel methods and results presented during this paper set the muse for a paradigm shift in robotic interventions for gait rehabilitation.