Resumen
The motor impairment occurring after a stroke is characterized by pathological muscle activation patterns or synergies. However, while robot-aided myoelectric interfaces have been proposed for stroke rehabilitation, they do not address this issue, which might result in inefficient interventions. Here, we present a novel paradigm that relies on the correction of the pathological muscle activity as a way to elicit rehabilitation, even in patients with complete paralysis. Previous studies demonstrated that there are no substantial inter-limb differences in the muscle synergy organization of healthy individuals. We propose building a subject-specific model of muscle activity from the healthy limb and mirroring it to use it as a learning tool for the patient to reproduce the same healthy myoelectric patterns on the paretic limb during functional task training. Here, we aim at understanding how this myoelectric model, which translates muscle activity into continuous movements of a 7-degree of freedom upper limb exoskeleton, could transfer between sessions, arms and tasks. The experiments with 8 healthy individuals and 2 chronic stroke patients proved the feasibility and effectiveness of such myoelectric interface. We anticipate the proposed method to become an efficient strategy for the correction of maladaptive muscle activity and the rehabilitation of stroke patients.
Idioma original | Inglés |
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Número de artículo | 16688 |
Publicación | Scientific Reports |
Volumen | 8 |
N.º | 1 |
DOI | |
Estado | Publicada - 1 dic 2018 |
Palabras clave
- Mirror myoelectric interfaces
- Hemiplegic patients
- Mouvement restauration
Project and Funding Information
- Funding Info
- This study was funded by the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung (GRUENS ROB-1), the Deutsche_x000D_ Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Koselleck), the Fortüne-Program of the University of Tübingen (2422-0-0), and_x000D_ the Bundes Ministerium für Bildung und Forschung BMBF MOTORBIC (FKZ 13GW0053), AMORSA (FKZ_x000D_ 16SV7754), Gipuzkoa Regional Government (INKRATEK), Ministry of Science of the Basque Country (Elkartek:_x000D_ EXOTEK). A. Sarasola-Sanz’s work was supported by La Caixa-DAAD scholarship and N. Irastorza-Landa’s work_x000D_ by the Basque Government and IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain.