Robotic Ankle to Restore Symmetry and Reduce Energy Cost of Walking Post-Stroke

机器人脚踝可恢复对称性并降低中风后行走的能量成本

• 批准号: 8638349
• 负责人: Gregory Stephen Sawicki
• 金额: $ 22.47万
• 依托单位: NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY RALEIGH
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-05 至 2016-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8638349
• 关键词: Activities of Daily Living; Age; Aging; Ankle; Automobile Driving; Body Weight; Cerebral Palsy; Characteristics; Chronic; Clinic; Clinical; Communities; Consumption; Energy Metabolism; Equilibrium; Financial compensation; Gait; Hemiplegia; Hip region structure; Impairment; Intervention; Joints; Knee; Lead; Limb structure; Locomotion; Lower Extremity; Mechanics; Metabolic; Muscle; Muscle Weakness; Musculoskeletal; Outcome; Output; Patients; Phase; Play; Population; Power Walking; Production; Public Health; Quality of life; Recruitment Activity; Research; Risk Factors; Robot; Robotics; Role; Secondary to; Side; Societies; Speed; Spinal cord injury; Stroke; Sum; Survivors; Tendon structure; Testing; Translating; Traumatic Brain Injury; United States; Walking; Work; ankle joint; chronic stroke; cost; design; disability; exhaust; exoskeleton; falls; hemiparesis; improved; intervention effect; post stroke; public health relevance; robot assistance; robotic device; therapy design

PROJECT DESCRIPTION / ABSTRACT Stroke is a leading cause of chronic disability in the United States, with nearly 610,000 new cases annually. In chronic stroke patients, slow, exhausting walking is a primary deleterious outcome that limits activities of daily living. Furthermore, impaired walking can lead to secondary impairments such as muscle weakness and poor balance, both risk factors for falls. Therefore, interventions designed to improve walking function post-stroke could have significant positive impact on the quality of life of millions. In healthy walking, the ankle extensor muscles play a major role in key walking sub-tasks including (1) propulsion (2) body-weight support and (3) swing initiation. Chronic stroke patients typically have problems with each of these sub-tasks, likely due to weak and uncoordinated ankle mechanical function in their paretic limb. Impaired unilateral ankle function results in highly asymmetric gait that limits top walking speed and elevates metabolic energy expenditure. The primary objective of the proposed research is to use a wearable robotic device to assist the paretic limb in patients with post-stroke hemiplegia and improve both gait symmetry and economy. We will recruit 20 patients with chronic stroke and construct lightweight robotic ankle exoskeletons for their paretic limb. Then we will test whether robotic assistance focused on ankle joint extension can improve paretic limb function - driving it towards that of size/age paired healthy controls. We hypothesize that targeted, unilateral ankle joint mechanical assistance will restore gait symmetry across multiple scales of musculoskeletal organization - from limbs to lower-limb joints- and reduce the metabolic cost of walking in people post-stroke. If robotic ankle exoskeletons can restore normal walking mechanics and reduce metabolic cost, then people with severe impairments post-stroke could benefit from a portable version as a permanent aid during community ambulation.

项目描述 /摘要 中风是美国慢性残疾的主要原因，每年有近610,000例新病例。在 慢性中风患者，缓慢而疲惫的步行是一个主要有害结果，限制了每天的活动 活的。此外，步行受损会导致次要障碍，例如肌肉无力和差 平衡，这是跌倒的两个风险因素。因此，旨在改善行走功能的干预措施 可能对数百万的生活质量产生重大积极影响。 在健康步行中，脚踝伸肌肌肉在关键步行子任务中起着重要作用，包括（1） 推进（2）体重支撑和（3）挥杆启动。慢性中风患者通常有问题 这些子任务中的每一个都可能是由于其偏长的肢体中弱和不协调的踝部机械功能。 单侧踝部功能受损会导致高度不对称的步态，从而限制了最高步行速度并提升 代谢能量消耗。 拟议研究的主要目的是使用可穿戴机器人设备来帮助偏度 冲程后偏瘫患者的肢体，并改善步态对称性和经济性。 我们将招募20例慢性中风患者，并为其构建轻量级机器人脚踝外骨骼 倾斜的肢体。然后，我们将测试专注于踝关节扩展的机器人援助是否可以提高偏板 肢体功能 - 朝着大小/年龄配对的健康对照驱动它。我们假设这是针对性的， 单侧踝关节机械辅助将恢复多个肌肉骨骼的步态对称性 组织 - 从四肢到下limb关节，并降低了中风后人行走的代谢成本。 如果机器人脚踝外骨骼可以恢复正常的步行力学并降低代谢成本，那么 中风后严重损害可以从便携式版本中受益，作为社区期间的永久援助 走动。