AI Article Synopsis

  • Real-world environments often include stairs, and about 90% of elderly individuals use compensation strategies to navigate them due to significantly different biomechanics compared to walking on level surfaces.
  • A study was conducted with 11 able-bodied subjects to assess the Myosuit, a soft wearable exosuit, for its potential as a stair ascent training aid.
  • The findings show that Myosuit maintains normal movement patterns while reducing the demand on hip and knee muscles during stair climbing, as evidenced by decreased EMG activity in key leg muscles without introducing compensatory movements.

Article Abstract

Real world settings are seldomly just composed of level surfaces and stairs are frequently encountered in daily life. Unfortunately, ~ 90% of the elderly population use some sort of compensation pattern in order to negotiate stairs. Because the biomechanics required to successfully ascend stairs is significantly different from level walking, an independent training protocol is warranted. Here, we present as a preliminary investigation with 11 able-bodied subjects, prior to clinical trials, whether Myosuit could potentially serve as a stair ascent training robot. Myosuit is a soft wearable exosuit that was designed to assist the user via hip and knee extension during the early stance phase. We hypothesized that clinical studies could be carried out if the lower limb kinematics, sensory feedback via plantar force, and electromyography (EMG) patterns do not deviate from the user's physiological stair ascent patterns while reducing hip and knee extensor demand. Our results suggest that Myosuit conserves the user's physiological kinematic and plantar force patterns. Moreover, we observe approximately 20% and 30% decrease in gluteus maximus and vastus medialis EMG levels in the pull up phase, respectively. Collectively, Myosuit reduces the hip and knee extensor demand during stair ascent without any introduction of significant compensation patterns.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10465530PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-35769-2DOI Listing

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