Wireless programmable electrical stimulator - gait timing simulation for lower limbs.
Date Issued
2014
Date
2014
Author(s)
Merwe, Hein van der
Abstract
Peripheral nerve degeneration or damage causes loss of muscle function and thus results in the inability to perform basic actions such as standing or walking. Although electrical nerve stimulation has been used to prevent muscle atrophy since 1930, it is still not widely adopted in clinical therapy for mobility restoration due to the lack of standard parameters for the stimulation signal. Efficient stimulation protocols need to be designed for this signal and applied to human denervated muscles. The stimulation signal consists of pulse trains with parameters including train duration, train-to-train duration, pulse duration, pulse-to-pulse duration and amplitude. For actions such as walking, various muscles are involved in a synergic activity and need to continuously contract at certain times and thus multiple synchronized stimulation signals are needed. To determine efficient protocols that can transfer a patient from sit to stand position and maintain standing, a stimulator with multiple finely adjustable channels is needed. A wireless electrical nerve stimulation stand-alone system consisting of a FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) as the main controller and a GUI(graphical user interface) using LabVIEW was developed for this purpose. Experiments were done on frogs to determine appropriate stimulation parameters. A wooden model with muscle wire was used to test timing sets for muscle synchronization. This system might have potential to be used in designing appropriate protocols for functional restoration of immobile patients.
Subjects
神經電刺激
肢步態之時序
Type
thesis
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