Sensory stimulation can play a fundamental role in the activation of the primary sensorimotor cortex (S1-M1), which can promote motor learning and M1 plasticity in stroke patients. However, studies have focused mainly on investigating the influence of brain lesion profiles on the activation patterns of S1-M1 during motor tasks instead of sensory tasks. Therefore, the objective of...
Robots have been proposed as tools to measure bimanual coordination in children with unilateral cerebral palsy (uCP). However, previous research only examined one task and clinical interpretation remains challenging due to the large amount of generated data. This cross-sectional study aims to examine bimanual coordination by using multiple bimanual robotics tasks in children with...
Unilateral stroke leads to asymmetric deficits in movement performance; yet its effects on naturalistic bimanual actions, a key aspect of everyday functions, are understudied. Particularly, how naturalistic bimanual actions that require the two hands to cooperatively interact with each other while manipulating a single common object are planned, executed, and coordinated after...
Peripheral nerve injuries and central neurologic conditions can result in extensive disabilities. In cases with unilateral impairment, assessing the asymmetry between the upper extremity has been used to assess outcomes of treatment and severity of injury. A wide variety of validated and novel tests and sensors have been utilized to determine the upper extremity asymmetry. The...
Control system design for a microprocessor-controlled hip–knee–ankle–foot (HKAF) prosthesis is a challenge since hip disarticulation amputees lack the entire leg and, therefore, only have pelvis movement as user-guided input. This research proposes a method for determining hip joint angles from pelvis movement in a control system for the next generation of powered prostheses...
Previous studies showed that repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) reduces spasticity after stroke. However, clinical assessments like the modified Ashworth scale, cannot discriminate stretch reflex-mediated stiffness (spasticity) from passive stiffness components of resistance to muscle stretch. The mechanisms through which rTMS might influence spasticity are also...
Effective communication is especially important in the wearable robots (WRs) community, which encloses a great variety of devices across different application domains, e.g., healthcare, occupational, and consumer. In this paper we present a vocabulary of terms with the aim to create a common understanding of terms and concepts among the different fields of expertise relevant in...
The prosthetic socket is a key component that influences prosthesis satisfaction, with a poorly fitting prosthetic socket linked to prosthesis abandonment and reduced community participation. This paper reviews adjustable socket designs, as they have the potential to improve prosthetic fit and comfort through accommodating residual limb volume fluctuations and alleviating undue...
In stroke rehabilitation, wearable technology can be used as an intervention modality by providing timely, meaningful feedback on motor performance. Stroke survivors’ preferences may offer a unique perspective on what metrics are intuitive, actionable, and meaningful to change behavior. However, few studies have identified feedback preferences from stroke survivors. This project...
Manual wheelchair propulsion is widely accepted to be biomechanically inefficient, with a high prevalence of shoulder pain and injuries among users. Directional control during wheelchair movement is a major, yet largely overlooked source of energy loss: changing direction or maintaining straightforward motion on tilted surfaces requires unilateral braking. This study evaluates...
Electromyography (EMG) is a classical technique used to record electrical activity associated with muscle contraction and is widely applied in Biomechanics, Biomedical Engineering, Neuroscience and Rehabilitation Robotics. Determining muscle activation onset timing, which can be used to infer movement intention and trigger prostheses and robotic exoskeletons, is still a big...
Motor impairments are very common in neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Noninvasive brain stimulation could influence the motor function of patients. The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the effectiveness of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on balance and gait ability in patients with multiple sclerosis. Additionally, a secondary aim was to...
Learning of a visuomotor task not only leads to changes in motor performance but also improves proprioceptive function of the trained joint/limb system. Such sensorimotor learning may show intra-joint transfer that is observable at a previously untrained degrees of freedom of the trained joint. Here, we examined if and to what extent such learning transfers to neighboring joints...
Foot drop is a neuromuscular disorder that causes abnormal gait patterns. This study developed a pneumatically powered ankle-foot orthosis (AFO) to improve the gait patterns of patients with foot drop. We hypothesized that providing unilateral ankle dorsiflexion assistance during the swing phase would improve the kinematics and spatiotemporal gait parameters of such patients...
People who were previously hospitalised with stroke may have difficulty operating a motor vehicle, and their driving aptitude needs to be evaluated to prevent traffic accidents in today’s car-based society. Although the association between motor-cognitive functions and driving aptitude has been extensively studied, motor-cognitive functions required for driving have not been...
We aim to determine a comprehensive set of requirements, perceptions, and expectations that people with spinal cord injury (SCI) and the clinicians in charge of their rehabilitation have regarding the use of wearable robots (WR) for gait rehabilitation. There are concerns due to the limited user acceptance of WR for gait rehabilitation. Developers need to emphasize understanding...
A key motor skill is the ability to rapidly interact with our dynamic environment. Humans can generate goal-directed motor actions in response to sensory stimulus within ~ 60-200ms. This ability can be impaired after stroke, but most clinical tools lack any measures of rapid feedback processing. Reaching tasks have been used as a framework to quantify impairments in generating...
Most partial hand amputees experience limited wrist movement. The limited rotational wrist movement deteriorates natural upper limb system related to hand use and the usability of the prosthetic hand, which may cause secondary damage to the musculoskeletal system due to overuse of the upper limb affected by repetitive compensatory movement patterns. Nevertheless, partial hand...
Movement sonification, the use of real-time auditory feedback linked to movement parameters, have been proposed to support rehabilitation. Nevertheless, if promising results have been reported, the effect of the type of sound used has not been studied systematically. The aim of this study was to investigate in a single session the effect of different types of sonification both...
Practicality of implementation and dosing of supplemental gait training in an acute stroke inpatient rehabilitation setting are not well studied but can have positive impact on outcomes. To determine the feasibility of early, intense supplemental gait training in inpatient stroke rehabilitation, compare functional outcomes and the specific mode of delivery. Assessor blinded...
Characterizing human movement is essential for understanding movement disorders, evaluating progress in rehabilitation, or even analyzing how a person adapts to the use of assistive devices. Thanks to the improvement of motion capture technology, recording human movement has become increasingly accessible and easier to conduct. Over the last few years, multiple methods have been...
There are several meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) demonstrating the benefits of virtual reality (VR) training as an intervention for motor performance, activity of daily living (ADL) and quality of life (QoL) outcomes in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). However, the aggregate evidence collected to date has not been thoroughly evaluated for strength...
Fatigue is one of the most commonly reported symptoms after subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) and is indirectly associated with physical activity (PA). Associations between fatigue and PA are primarily examined based on conventional measures (i.e. a single fatigue score or average PA levels), thereby assuming that fatigue and PA do not fluctuate over time. However, levels of fatigue...
Children with vestibular hypofunction (VH) may have gaze instability, balance disorders, and delayed postural-motor development. Gaze stabilization exercises (GSE) are designed to improve dynamic visual acuity (DVA). We aimed to assess the acceptability of a serious game prototype called Kid Gaze Rehab (KGR) designed to implement GSE training in children with VH, combined with...