Evaluation of applied forces and EMG of the young, aged & stroke population in a 3D arm workspace.

The objectives of this study were to evaluate 11 muscle electromyograms (EMGs) while performing force application tasks in a 3D workspace, and to identify challenging regions within the workspace in which subjects had difficultly generating forces in desired directions. Each subject (4 young healthy adults, 4 older with stroke-induced disability, 4 age-matched older) applied forces (8 lbs desired) in 6 directions at 19 locations spatially distributed in the workspace. The normals could meet the force threshold levels except for the 2 female aged participants for the Right force direction.