Assessing proprioception:A critical review of methods

To control movement,the brain has to integrate proprioceptive information from a variety of mechanoreceptors.The role of proprioception in daily activities,exercise,and sports has been extensively investigated,using different techniques,yet the proprioceptive mechanisms underlying human movement control are still unclear.In the current work we have reviewed understanding of proprioception and the three testing methods:threshold to detection of passive motion,joint position reproduction,and active movement extent discrimination,all of which have been used for assessing proprioception.The origin of the methods,the different testing apparatus,and the procedures and protocols used in each approach are compared and discussed.Recommendations are made for choosing an appropriate technique when assessing proprioceptive mechanisms in different contexts.

Reconfigurable Muscle Strength Training Robot with Multi-mode Training for 17 Joint Movements

Different from limb rehabilitation training,the purpose of muscle strength training is to reduce muscle atrophy and increase muscle strength and tolerance through strength training of limb muscles,and then improve the muscle strength level of muscles(groups),mainly for sports fitness and muscle strengthening groups and patients with muscle atrophy or muscle weakness caused by various diseases.In this paper,we developed a new reconfigurable muscle strength training robot,a bionic robot by imitating physicians to conduct muscle strength training for patients,which was developed with six training modes for 17 joint movements,that is,the shoulder flexion/extension,the shoulder internal/external rotation,the shoulder adduction/abduction,the elbow flexion/extension,the wrist supination/pronation,the wrist flexion/extension,the wrist radial/ulnar deviation,the hip flexion/extension,the hip internal/external rotation,the hip adduction/abduction,the knee flexion/extension,the ankle dorsiflexion/plantarflexion,the ankle adduction/abduction,the ankle inversion/eversion,the waist flexion/extension,the waist left/right rotation,and the waist left/right flexion.The reconfigurable mechanism was designed with fully electric adjuster and reconfigurable adaptors deployed on the driving unit,and six training modes were developed,namely,continuous passive motion,active exercise,passive–active exercise,isotonic exercise,isometric exercise and isokinetic exercise.Experiments with knee joint and elbow joint have shown that the developed reconfigurable muscle strength training robot can realize the multi-mode trainings for the 17 joint movements.

Reinforcing and Reducing Manipulation by Breathing on Yin and Yang Meridian Points for Motor Function of Knee Joints in Patients with Ischemic Stroke

Objective: To observe the effect of reinforcing and reducing manipulation by breathing on yin and yang meridian points for motor function of knee joints in patients with ischemic stroke. Methods: A total of 60 ischemic stroke cases were randomly allocated into an observation group and a control group, 30 in each group. Other than basic and conventional rehabilitation therapies, cases in the observation group were treated with reinforcing and reducing manipulation on yin and yang meridians points for a period of 8 weeks; whereas cases in the control group only received the same basic and conventional rehabilitation therapy as that in the observation group. Then the knee joint energy, support moment and shaking moment were compared between the two groups before treatment, and after 4-week and 8-week treatment respectively. Results: Before treatment, there were no between-group significant differences in knee joint energy, support moment and shaking moment(all P>0.05). After treatment, the knee joint energy, support moment and shaking moment in both groups were significantly improved(P<0.05). After 8 weeks of treatment, the knee joint energy, support moment and shaking moment in both groups were significantly improved than that of 4-week treatment(P < 0.05). In addition, there were between-group statistical significances in comparing knee joint energy, support moment and shaking moment after 4 and 8 weeks of treatment(P<0.05). Conclusion: Reinforcing and reducing manipulation by breathing on yin and yang meridian points can increase the knee joint support and shaking force and moment in stroke patients and improve their walking ability.

Comparing Online Performance of EMG Pattern Recognition with and Without Joint Movements

Our previous study suggested that the subcutaneous muscle displacement caused by joint movements might alter muscle activation patterns and thus affect the classification performance.To further analyze the effect of joint movements on the online performance of Electromyography(EMG)Pattern Recognition(PR),this study assessed online classification performance with and without joint movements.EMG signals were recorded from the dominant forearm of 10 able-bodied subjects under two motion scenarios:Hand and Wrist Joints Unconstrained(HAWJU)and Constrained(HAWJC).Sixth-order autoregressive coefficients and four time-domain features were extracted from EMG signals.Linear Discriminant Analysis(LDA)models were trained to perform an online performance evaluation of the limb motions.The experimental results showed that the four online performance metrics:Motion Selection Time(MST),Motion Completion Time(MCT),Motion Completion Rate(MCR),and Online Classification Accuracy(ONCA)were 0.35 s,1.44 s,97.40%,and 82.61%for HAWJU and 0.37 s,1.47 s,89.70%,and 73.57%for HAWJC,respectively.The outcomes of this study indicated that subcutaneous muscle displacement due to joint movements has a positive effect on online classification performance.The absence of joint movements may be a physiological factor contributing to the poor online performance of the EMG-PR of transradial amputees.This study can provide a new perspective for improving the online performance of EMG-PR for transradial amputees.

Comparing EMG Pattern Recognition with and Without Hand and Wrist Movements

Electromyography(EMG)pattern recognition has been widely employed for prosthesis control.Several studies demonstrated that amputees had poorer performances of EMG pattern recognition when compared to able-bodied individuals.Several factors,such as the muscle weakness and atrophy of residual limbs,the length of residual limbs,and the decrease of the affected side's motor cortex,had been studied to improve the performance of amputees.However,there was no study on the factor that the absence of joint movements for amputees.This study aimed to investigate whether the hand and wrist joint movements had effects on the EMG pattern recognition.Ten able-bodied subjects were tested for 11 hand and wrist gestures with two different gesture modalities:hand and wrist joints unconstrained(HAWJU)and constrained(HAWJC).Time-domain(TD)features and Linear Discriminant Analysis(LDA)were employed to compare the classification performance of the two modalities.Compared to HAWJU,HAWJC significantly reduced the average Classification Accuracy(CA)across all subjects from 95.53 to 85.52%.The experimental results demonstrated that the hand and wrist joint movements had significant effects on EMG pattern recognition.The outcomes provided a new perspective to study the factors affecting EMG pattern recognition.