Browse the latest research summaries in the field of biomechanics for spinal cord injury patients and caregivers.
Showing 91-100 of 209 results
Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 2021 • March 26, 2021
This study used wearable sensors to examine arm use patterns in manual wheelchair users (MWC) and able-bodied controls, focusing on static and dynamic arm movements at different humeral elevation rang...
KEY FINDING: MWC users spent significantly more time dynamic in 60–90◦and 90–120◦on the dominant arm compared to controls.
PLOS ONE, 2021 • April 23, 2021
The study compared the humeral elevation workspace of individuals with SCI who use manual wheelchairs (MWC) to age- and sex-matched able-bodied controls. Individuals with SCI spent significantly more ...
KEY FINDING: Individuals with SCI spent a significantly lower percentage of the day in 0–30˚ of humeral elevation compared to controls.
Sensors, 2021 • April 13, 2021
This article presents a systematic review of wearable sensors and techniques used in real-time gait analysis, and their application to pathological gait. We found that heel strike and toe off are the ...
KEY FINDING: Heel strike and toe off are the most widely identified gait events, irrespective of the type of sensor used.
IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng, 2021 • January 1, 2021
The paper introduces an FES controller that works across a wide repertoire of movements by using methods of training that are quick and automatic. The controller takes, as inputs, the goal state of th...
KEY FINDING: Controllers trained using HER are more likely to learn to control the arm model within the specified training time.
J Physiol, 2021 • August 1, 2021
Passive skeletal muscle mechanical properties of whole muscle are not as well understood as muscle’s active mechanical properties. Future studies defining the specific load bearing structures and thei...
KEY FINDING: Titin bears the majority of passive load within the single muscle cell.
IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng, 2022 • February 15, 2022
This study investigates methods to enhance reinforcement learning (RL) controllers for functional electrical stimulation (FES) of a human arm model, focusing on improving learning rates, accuracies, a...
KEY FINDING: Curriculum learning improved the number of small targets acquired by as much as 50%.
Med Biol Eng Comput, 2022 • December 1, 2022
This study used musculoskeletal models to simulate patient lifts and estimate caregiver spinal compression with and without FNS. The results suggest that FNS can reduce the force required from caregiv...
KEY FINDING: Simulation without muscle activation predicted caregiver spinal compression approximately 1.3x the NIOSH recommended ‘Action Limit’.
Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation, 2022 • September 8, 2022
This study evaluated the accuracy of a novel algorithm for estimating gait speed in children undergoing rehabilitation using a single ankle-worn inertial sensor. The algorithm showed accurate gait spe...
KEY FINDING: The measurement error of the sensor-based gait speed estimation was low in both standardized (0.01 m/s) and daily life (0.04 m/s) conditions.
Sensors, 2022 • November 1, 2022
This study assessed gait capacity and gait performance in rehabilitation inpatients with stroke or iSCI using IMUs. The IMU-based gait algorithm was found to be valid for gait assessment and gait capa...
KEY FINDING: IMUs can accurately measure walking ability in patients with neurological disorders.
Top Spinal Cord Inj Rehabil, 2022 • October 1, 2022
This study investigates the impact of varying wheelchair axle positions on propulsion kinematics in individuals with C7 tetraplegia, focusing on speed, stroke frequency, acceleration, and shoulder ran...
KEY FINDING: Significant differences in speed were observed between axle position 1 (forward and up) and position 2 (forward and down), and between position 2 and position 4 (backward and up).