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  4. Human Gait Control Using Functional Electrical Stimulation Based on Controlling the Shank Dynamics

Human Gait Control Using Functional Electrical Stimulation Based on Controlling the Shank Dynamics

Basic and Clinical Neuroscience, 2020 · DOI: 10.32598/bcn.11.1.173.2 · Published: January 1, 2020

NeurologyRehabilitationBiomedical

Simple Explanation

The patients with spinal cord injury or stroke either cannot walk normally or cannot walk at all. So far, no clinical treatment approaches have been approved for gait recovery in such patients. Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) is an effective approach for movement recovery in paralyzed limbs based on the stimulation of neuromuscular systems. According to the study results, the proposed control strategy could control gait using FES with acceptable performance.

Study Duration
Not specified
Participants
5 healthy participants
Evidence Level
Not specified

Key Findings

  • 1
    The gait process was controlled with acceptable quality, while no desired trajectories were envisioned for joint movements.
  • 2
    The intriguing similarity was observed between the dynamics of the recorded human data and the dynamics of the controlled musculoskeletal model.
  • 3
    The proposed control strategy could imitate the gait-related motor control process.

Research Summary

Efficient gait control using Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) is an open research problem. In this research, a new intermittent controller has been designed to control the human shank movement dynamics during gait. The designed intermittent controller was evaluated through some simulation studies on a two-joint musculoskeletal model. The obtained results suggested that the pattern of the obtained hip and knee joint trajectories, the outputs of the musculoskeletal model, were acceptably similar to the joints’ trajectories pattern of healthy subjects. The intriguing similarity was observed between the dynamics of the recorded human data and those of the controlled musculoskeletal model. It supports the acceptable performance of the proposed control strategy.

Practical Implications

Rehabilitation Prosthesis

The proposed control strategy can be used to implement the new version of the FES-based rehabilitation prosthesis for gait control in patients with spinal cord injury or some post-stroke conditions.

Gait Control

The control strategy automatically restricted the motion of the knee angle and hip angle to move within the normal range without the need to consider any control constraints.

Muscle Fatigue

The intermittent control strategies could postpone the occurrence of muscle fatigue elicited from functional electrical stimulation and reduce energy consumption.

Study Limitations

  • 1
    Practical Implementation
  • 2
    Experimental setup on patients is required
  • 3
    Not specified

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