Abstract
Body-machine interfaces (BMIs) decode upper-body motion for operating devices, such as computers and wheelchairs. We developed a low-cost portable BMI for survivors of cervical spinal cord injury and investigated it as a means to support personalized assistance and therapy within the home environment. Depending on the specific impairment of each participant, we modified the interface gains to restore a higher level of upper body mobility. The use of the BMI over one month led to increased range of motion and force at the shoulders in chronic survivors. Concurrently, subjects learned to reorganize their body motions as they practiced the control of a computer cursor to perform different tasks and games. The BMI allowed subjects to generate any movement of the cursor with different motions of their body. Through practice subjects demonstrated a tendency to increase the similarity between the body motions used to control the cursor in distinct tasks. Nevertheless, by the end of learning, some significant and persistent differences appeared to persist. This suggests the ability of the central nervous system to concurrently learn operating the BMI while exploiting the possibility to adapt the available mobility to the specific spatio-temporal requirements of each task.
Highlights
There have been significant developments in the design of technological support systems for rehabilitation, prosthetics, and assistance to the elderly and the disabled[1, 2]
We propose to use a body-machine interface (BMI) mapping the body motions captured by inertial measurement units (IMUs) onto the two coordinates that specify the position of a cursor on a computer monitor
Principal component analysis (PCA) allows us to identify a subset of independent movements that a disabled user can still execute and that can be continuously mapped to a family of continuous action commands[9,10,11,12]
Summary
There have been significant developments in the design of technological support systems for rehabilitation, prosthetics, and assistance to the elderly and the disabled[1, 2]. We described the effects of training with the BMI from a clinical point of view, and in terms of strategies that participants may adopt to translate the desired low-dimensional motion of a controlled object into an effective pattern of higher dimensional body motions. This is an example of the complex computational problem of finding an inverse of an under-constrained system of equations, admitting a multitude of solutions. The motivation and the context for the problem are offered by the need to understand and facilitate the formation of new movements as well as the reacquisition of lost abilities by people with a modified and limited domain of coordination
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
