Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter Eight
Combined Functional Electrical
Stimulation (FES) and Robotic System
Driven by User Intention for Post-Stroke
Wrist Rehabilitation
Xiaoling Hu, Raymond Kai-Yu Tong, Rui Li, Jingjing Xue, Szekit Ho and
Pengnan Chen
Department of Health Technology and Informatics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic
University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
8.1 INTRODUCTION
The extent of the restoration of limb functions after stroke is highly associated
with the intensive practice of the affected limbs by their own neuromuscular
efforts (Broeks
et al
. 1999; Farmer
et al
. 2004). Functional electrical stimulation
(FES) can stimulate the muscles through electrical current, which generates limb
movement by activating a person's own muscles to restore motor functions and
also evoke sensory feedback during muscle contraction to the brain to promote
motor relearning (Chae and Yu 1999; Chae
et al
. 2000; Chan
et al
. 2008). On the
other hand, rehabilitation robotic system can provide external assistive support to
body parts (e.g. limbs), which help persons to experience limb movements at the
paretic side to improve related sensory-motor functions during limb movements
(Volpe
et al
. 2004; Riener
et al
. 2005). Both FES systems and rehabilitation robots
have been used for rehabilitation applications on disabled persons(Volpe
et al
.
2000; Tong and Hu 2008). However, most FES and robot devices are applied to
a paralyzed limb in a passive way, i.e. the supports from an FES or a robot are not
related to the voluntary residual motor activities of a person (Popovic
et al
. 2002;
Sinkjaer
et al
. 2003). Some FES or robotic systems involve voluntary motor inputs,
e.g. electromyography (EMG) or torque (Hesse
et al
. 2003; Hara 2008). While, these
systems only use the voluntary inputs as a triggering signal to initiate a start signal
