Estimating upper extremity joint loads of persons with spinal cord injury walking with a lower extremity powered exoskeleton and forearm crutches.

Lower extremity powered exoskeletons with crutch support can provide upright mobility to persons with complete spinal cord injury (SCI); however, crutch use for balance and weight transfer may increase upper extremity (UE) joint loads and injury risk. This research presented the first exoskeleton-human musculoskeletal model to estimate upper extremity biomechanics, driven by 3D motion data of persons with complete SCI walking with an exoskeleton and crutch assistance. Forearm crutches instrumented with strain gauges, force plates, and a 3D motion capture system were used to collect kinematic and kinetic data from five persons with complete SCI while walking with the ARKE exoskeleton.

Lower limb sagittal kinematic and kinetic modeling of very slow walking for gait trajectory scaling.

Lower extremity powered exoskeletons (LEPE) are an emerging technology that assists people with lower-limb paralysis. LEPE for people with complete spinal cord injury walk at very slow speeds, below 0.5m/s.

Modeling and Simulation of a Lower Extremity Powered Exoskeleton.

Lower extremity powered exoskeletons (LEPEs) allow people with spinal cord injury (SCI) to stand and walk. However, the majority of LEPEs walk slowly and users can become fatigued from overuse of forearm crutches, suggesting LEPE design can be enhanced. Virtual prototyping is a cost-effective way of improving design; therefore, this research developed and validated two models that simulate walking with the Bionik Laboratories' ARKE exoskeleton attached to a human musculoskeletal model.

Temporal-spatial gait parameter models of very slow walking.

This study assessed the relationship between walking speed and common temporal-spatial stride-parameters to determine if a change in gait strategy occurs at extremely slow walking speeds. Stride-parameter models that represent slow walking can act as a reference for lower extremity exoskeleton and powered orthosis controls since these devices typically operate at walking speeds less than 0.4 m/s.

Neuromuscular adaptations in older males and females with knee osteoarthritis during weight-bearing force control.

Background: Females exhibit significantly greater incidence, prevalence, and severity of osteoarthritis (OA) compared to males. Despite known biological, morphological, and functional differences between males and females, there has been little sex-related investigation into sex-specific biomechanical and neuromuscular responses to OA.

Objective: To identify sex-related differences in OA-affected adults and within-sex differences between healthy and OA-affected adults' muscular activation patterns during lower limb loading.

Sex-related differences in neuromuscular control: Implications for injury mechanisms or healthy stabilisation strategies?

Sex-related differences in neuromuscular activation have been previously identified and are thought to be an underlying contributor to the ACL injury mechanism. During dynamic tasks evaluating the role of muscle action as it relates to joint stability is difficult since individual muscle contributions to force generation are confounded by biomechanical factors of movement. The purpose of this study was to examine sex-related differences in knee muscle action during a weight-bearing isometric exercise and identify the stabilising role of these muscles.

Reliability of knee joint muscle activity during weight bearing force control.

We developed a novel approach that requires subjects to produce and finely tune ground reaction forces (GRFs) while standing. The aim of this study was to examine the reliability of electromyographic data recorded during these tasks. Healthy young adults stood with their dominant leg in a boot fixed to a force platform.