Abstract
Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) may be used in rehabilitation and assistance of people with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI). One significant application is facilitating physical exercise, mainly when combining FES with mechanical platforms, such as tricycles. However, there are still technical challenges in FES cycling protocols, such as improving control and cycling performance. Here we show how passive elements in knee orthoses during FES cycling could increase the average cadence, taking advantage of the cycling movement. Our approach is twofold. First, we simulated the forward dynamics of a detailed musculoskeletal model with passive elements over the knees. Simulations showed that specific spring stiffness ranges increased the crankset speed during cycling by more than 50%. Using parameters found in simulations, we built a pair of passive orthoses and performed experiments with one individual with SCI. During two days, the volunteer cycled with similar stimulation magnitude with and without the passive elements. We observed that the average crankset speed was higher by more than 10% when the springs were attached to the passive orthoses. These results show the potential of using passive elements to increase cycling speed for FES cycling with similar or even lower stimulation magnitude, leading to longer exercise duration.
Highlights
S PINAL cord injury (SCI) is a severe clinical condition with substantial physical, psychic, and social repercussions
The results showed that the addition of the passive element reduced the overall level of quadriceps excitation
Intensity of elasticity is referred to as the maximum torque, an approach that is often employed in the corresponding biomechanics literature [18]
Summary
S PINAL cord injury (SCI) is a severe clinical condition with substantial physical, psychic, and social repercussions.
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