Design and effectiveness evaluation of mirror myoelectric interfaces: a novel method to restore movement in hemiplegic patients
Author/s
Sarasola-Sanz, Andrea; Irastorza-Landa, Nerea; López-Larraz, Eduardo; Shiman, Farid; Spüler, Martin; [et al.]Date
2018-12-01Keywords
Mirror myoelectric interfaces
Hemiplegic patients
Mouvement restauration
Abstract
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 ...
Type
article