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theses

Conventional upper extremity rehabilitation methods provide limited choices for training regimes with poor recovery outlook in regaining motor ability for persons with stroke, compared much wider and elaborative lower limb training options. Moreover, the existing upper limb rehabilitation paradigms often focus only on bulk motions with maximal force generation, neglecting on a more fine motor control over the whole spectrum of various force levels. Considering the fact that the focus on the upper extremity should be based on the finer control than lower extremity, an imbalance exists in the current rehabilitation regime. To balance this shortcoming and to achieve better overall results in rehabilitation training regime, a more refined and well-designed training system is required to ensure more practical and effective outcome with finer motor control as well as to quantitatively address the theoretical aspects of motor control.
To address these issues in terms of developing a better rehabilitation platform as well as to deliver more quantifiable metrics, this study investigated application and development of a novel upper limb rehabilitation training system for the restoration of daily fine motor function for hemiparetic persons using assistive robotic approaches on rehabilitation instrumentation to effectively quantify human kinetic and dynamic motor functions at the elbow, forearm, and hand.
Conventional Fitts' speed vs. accuracy trade-off (SAT) test was adapted for this research for both kinematic and dynamic aspects of human motor control. First, kinematic speed vs. accuracy trade-off (KSAT) test was performed at the elbow flexion and extension level, then dynamic speed vs. accuracy trade-off (DSAT) test was performed at the palmar force level, both with visual feedback.
Specifically, four hypotheses will be tested in this research: (1) Stroke groups' log-linearity trend from KSAT test will follow Fitts' law with differing slopes from normal groups' performance. (2) Second hypothesis will test normal groups' log-linearity from DSAT test to see whether the dynamic aspects of Fitts' paradigm will correlate to conventional kinematic Fitts' type behavior. (3) Third hypothesis will test on the reproducibility of the direct hand grip force from extrinsic force signals at the forearm to see the functionality of the force myography (FMG) which detects extrinsic force signals at the end-effector sites. (4) Last hypothesis will test the stroke group's improvements in terms of important functional metrics produced by the devices to show the efficacy of the system.
The overall system is called HARI (Hand and Arm Rehabilitation Interface) with accompanying subcomponents; MAST (Mechanical Arm Supporter and Tracker) for the base platform and lower arm movement detection with the embedded goniometer at the elbow, FMG (Force Myography) cuff sleeve for forearm musculature detection, and the Gripper for direct hand grip force detection. Instrumental development for HARI as a whole upper-limb rehabilitation system was successful, that all the individual
sub-devices were able to gather a reliable and repeatable, high quality physiological data with good signalto-noise (SNR) as well as excellent patient comfortness, to the level of imminent marketability for hospital, laboratory, or home settings, as an efficient and innovative rehabilitation tool.
Keywords - stroke, hemiparesis, paralysis, upper limb rehabilitation, kinematic, dynamic, Fitts' Law,
fine-motor control.

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 72-75).

http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.2/rucore10001600001.ETD.13477

ETD_216

doi:10.7282/T36110S0

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.

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