Functional Rehabilitation: Coordination of Artificial and Natural Controllers

Rodolphe Héliot (1, 2, 3) , Christine Azevedo Coste (1) , Bernard Espiau (3)

1 DEMAR - Artificial movement and gait restoration
2 CEA-LETI - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives - Laboratoire d'Electronique et de Technologie de l'Information
3 BIP - Biped Robot

Walking and standing abilities, though important for quality of life and participation in social and economic activities, can be adversely affected by central nervous system (CNS) disorders such as spinal cord injury, stroke or traumatic brain injury. One characteristic of motor deficiencies which affect lower extremities is their impact on both static and dynamic postural equilibrium. Depending on the impairment level, functional rehabilitation techniques may be needed for a patient to stand up and walk (Popovic and Sinkjær, 2003). Functional electrical stimulation (FES) can induce contraction of skeletal muscles by applying electrical stimuli to sensory-motor system via electrodes which can be placed on the skin (Kralj et al., 1983), or implanted (Guiraud et al., 2006). FES applications applied to lower limbs include foot drop correction, single joint control, cycling, standing up, walking... (Zhang and Zhu, 2007)...

Domaines: Automatique / Robotique

Rodolphe Héliot, Christine Azevedo Coste, Bernard Espiau. Functional Rehabilitation: Coordination of Artificial and Natural Controllers. Sashi S Kommu. Rehabilitation Robotics, Itech Education and Publishing, Vienna, Austria, pp.164-186, 2007, 978-3-902613-04-2. ⟨lirmm-00202617⟩