Effects of 4-Week Intensive Active-Resistive Training with an EMG-Based Exoskeleton Robot on Muscle Strength in Older People: A Pilot Study.

This study aims to investigate the idea that an active-resistive training with an EMG-based exoskeleton robot could be beneficial to muscle strength and antagonist muscle cocontraction control after 4-week intensive elbow flexion/extension training. Three older people over 65 years participated the training for an hour per session and completed total 20 sessions during four weeks. Outcome measures were chosen as the maximum joint torque and cocontraction ratio between the biceps/triceps brachii muscles at pre-/post-training.

Biomechanical analysis of the circular friction hand massage.

Background: A massage can be beneficial to relieve muscle tension on the neck and shoulder area. Various massage systems have been developed, but their motions are not uniform throughout different body parts nor specifically targeted to the neck and shoulder areas.

Objective: Pressure pattern and finger movement trajectories of the circular friction hand massage on trapezius, levator scapulae, and deltoid muscles were determined to develop a massage system that can mimic the motion and the pressure of the circular friction massage.

Determination of inertial parameters using a dynamometer.

In this study, a simple method based on the dynamic equation of motion was introduced to determine the moment of inertia using a commercial dynamometer, and an optimization technique was utilized to estimate inertial parameters with the determined moment of inertia. To evaluate the feasibility of the developed method, three different passive speeds (i.e.