Your doctor and therapist have had 3.5 years to figure out what needs to be done to get coordinated arm swing with your gait. HAVE THEY DONE ONE DAMN THING? 14 years later and my arm swing takes 30-60 minutes to occur and even then spasticity keeps my arm bent.
Development and Feasibility Assessment of a Rotational Orthosis for Walking with Arm Swing
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
published: 01 February 2017doi: 10.3389/fnins.2017.00032Frontiers in Neuroscience | www.frontiersin.org
1
February 2017 | Volume 11 | Article 32
Edited by:
Venketesh N. Dubey,Bournemouth University, UK
Reviewed by:
Brent Winslow,Design Interactive, USAHans-Eckhardt Schaefer,University of Stuttgart, Germany
*Correspondence:
Le Xie lexie@sjtu.edu.cn
Specialty section:
This article was submitted toNeural Technology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience
Received:
01 October 2016
Accepted:
16 January 2017
Published:
01 February 2017
Citation:
Fang J, Xie Q, Yang G-Y and Xie L(2017) Development and Feasibility Assessment of a Rotational Orthosisfor Walking with Arm Swing.Front. Neurosci. 11:32.doi: 10.3389/fnins.2017.00032
Development and Feasibility Assessment of a Rotational Orthosisfor Walking with Arm Swing
Juan Fang 1,2,
Qing Xie 3 ,
Guo-Yuan Yang
2
and Le Xie
2, 4
*
1
Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Food Manufacturing, Equipment and Technology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi City,China,
2
The Joint Lab of the Institute of Rehabilitation Centre and Chejing Robotics Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Med-X Research Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China,
3
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine of RuijinHospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China,
4
School of Material Science and Engineering,Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Interlimb neural coupling might underlie human bipedal locomotion, which is reflected in the fact that people swing their arms synchronously with leg movement in normal gait. Therefore, arm swing should be included in gait training to provide coordinated interlimb performance. The present study aimed to develop a Rotational Orthosis for Walking with Arm Swing (ROWAS), and evaluate its feasibility from the perspectives of implementation, acceptability and responsiveness. We developed the mechanical structures of the ROWAS system in SolidWorks, and implemented the concept in a prototype. Normal gait data were used as the reference performance of the shoulder, hip, knee and ankle joints of the prototype. The ROWAS prototype was tested for function assessment and further evaluated using five able-bodied subjects for user feedback. The ROWAS prototype produced coordinated performance in the upper and lower limbs,with joint profiles similar to those occurring in normal gait. The subjects reported a stronger feeling of walking with arm swing than without. The ROWAS system was deemed feasible according to the formal assessment criteria.
Keywords: interlimb neural coupling, arm swing, normal gait, coordinated movement, rehabilitation robotics
INTRODUCTION
People swing their arms synchronously with leg movement during walking due to interlimb neural linkage, in addition to mechanical factors. Although the arms have no direct function for propulsion (Barbeau et al., 1987), people normally swing their arms so as to improve gait stability (Behrman and Harkema, 2000; Bovonsunthonchai et al., 2012) and energy efficiency (Dietz, 2002; Collins et al., 2009). Apart from such behavioral relevance, many phenomena imply that arm swingduring walking is a neural-coordinated motor output. Rhythmic muscle activity was observedin the constrained arms during walking overground (Eke-Okoro et al., 1997), which implies the existence of neural coupling between the upper and lower limbs. Furthermore, adding mass toone ankle induced adaptive changes in both arms, in addition to changes in EMG from the legmuscles (Donker et al., 2002). This resulted in a coordinated movement pattern similar to that seen in unloaded normal gait. Studies of walking on a split-belt treadmill with different speed ratiosbetween the legs resulted in coordinated locomotion in the legs and arms (Dietz et al., 2001). Short accelerations or decelerations randomly applied to the right leg during treadmill walking producedEMG response in the bilateral arm muscles, in addition to that in the right leg (Dietz et al., 2001). Interlimb neural interaction thus appears to be an underlying neural mechanism of human bipedallocomotion.
2
and Le Xie
2, 4
*
1
Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Food Manufacturing, Equipment and Technology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi City,China,
2
The Joint Lab of the Institute of Rehabilitation Centre and Chejing Robotics Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Med-X Research Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China,
3
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine of RuijinHospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China,
4
School of Material Science and Engineering,Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Interlimb neural coupling might underlie human bipedal locomotion, which is reflected in the fact that people swing their arms synchronously with leg movement in normal gait. Therefore, arm swing should be included in gait training to provide coordinated interlimb performance. The present study aimed to develop a Rotational Orthosis for Walking with Arm Swing (ROWAS), and evaluate its feasibility from the perspectives of implementation, acceptability and responsiveness. We developed the mechanical structures of the ROWAS system in SolidWorks, and implemented the concept in a prototype. Normal gait data were used as the reference performance of the shoulder, hip, knee and ankle joints of the prototype. The ROWAS prototype was tested for function assessment and further evaluated using five able-bodied subjects for user feedback. The ROWAS prototype produced coordinated performance in the upper and lower limbs,with joint profiles similar to those occurring in normal gait. The subjects reported a stronger feeling of walking with arm swing than without. The ROWAS system was deemed feasible according to the formal assessment criteria.
Keywords: interlimb neural coupling, arm swing, normal gait, coordinated movement, rehabilitation robotics
INTRODUCTION
People swing their arms synchronously with leg movement during walking due to interlimb neural linkage, in addition to mechanical factors. Although the arms have no direct function for propulsion (Barbeau et al., 1987), people normally swing their arms so as to improve gait stability (Behrman and Harkema, 2000; Bovonsunthonchai et al., 2012) and energy efficiency (Dietz, 2002; Collins et al., 2009). Apart from such behavioral relevance, many phenomena imply that arm swingduring walking is a neural-coordinated motor output. Rhythmic muscle activity was observedin the constrained arms during walking overground (Eke-Okoro et al., 1997), which implies the existence of neural coupling between the upper and lower limbs. Furthermore, adding mass toone ankle induced adaptive changes in both arms, in addition to changes in EMG from the legmuscles (Donker et al., 2002). This resulted in a coordinated movement pattern similar to that seen in unloaded normal gait. Studies of walking on a split-belt treadmill with different speed ratiosbetween the legs resulted in coordinated locomotion in the legs and arms (Dietz et al., 2001). Short accelerations or decelerations randomly applied to the right leg during treadmill walking producedEMG response in the bilateral arm muscles, in addition to that in the right leg (Dietz et al., 2001). Interlimb neural interaction thus appears to be an underlying neural mechanism of human bipedallocomotion.
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