Iyer S Srikesh, Joseph Joel V, Vashista Vineet
Human Centered Robotics Lab, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gandhinagar, India.
Front Neurorobot. 2020 Mar 12;14:15. doi: 10.3389/fnbot.2020.00015. eCollection 2020.
Walking is one of the most relevant tasks that a person performs in their daily routine. Despite its mechanical complexities, any change in the external conditions that applies some external perturbation, or in the human musculoskeletal system that limits an individual's movement, entails a motor response that can either be compensatory or adaptive in nature. Incidentally, with aging or due to the occurrence of a neuro-musculoskeletal disorder, a combination of such changes including reduced sensory perception, muscle weakness, spasticity, etc. has been reported, and this can significantly degrade the human walking performance. Various studies in gait rehabilitation literature have identified a need for the development of better rehabilitation paradigms and have implied that an efficient human robot interaction is critical. Understanding how humans respond to a particular gait alteration can be beneficial in designing an effective rehabilitation paradigm. In this context, the current work investigates human locomotor adaptation to resistive alteration to the hip and ankle strategies of walking. A cable-driven robotic system, which does not add mobility constraints, was used to implement resistive force interventions within the hip and ankle joints separately through two experiments with eight healthy adult participants in each. In both cases, the intervention was applied during the push-off phase of walking, i.e., from pre-swing to terminal swing. The results showed that subjects in both groups adopted a compensatory response to the applied intervention and demonstrated intralimb and interlimb adaptation. Overall, the participants demonstrated a deviant gait implying lower limb musculoskeletal adjustments as if to compensate for a hip or ankle abnormality.
行走是人们日常生活中最常见的活动之一。尽管其机械原理复杂，但外部条件的任何变化（如施加一些外部干扰）或人体肌肉骨骼系统的变化（限制个体运动）都会引发一种运动反应，这种反应本质上可能是补偿性的或适应性的。顺便提一下，随着年龄增长或由于神经肌肉骨骼疾病的发生，已报告出现了包括感觉减退、肌肉无力、痉挛等在内的多种此类变化组合，这会显著降低人类的行走能力。步态康复文献中的各种研究已确定需要开发更好的康复模式，并暗示有效的人机交互至关重要。了解人类如何对特定的步态改变做出反应有助于设计有效的康复模式。在此背景下，当前的研究调查了人类运动对行走时髋部和踝部策略的阻力改变的适应性。使用一个不增加移动限制的缆索驱动机器人系统，通过两个实验分别在髋部和踝关节内实施阻力干预，每个实验有八名健康成年参与者。在两种情况下，干预都在行走的蹬离阶段施加，即从摆动前期到摆动末期。结果表明，两组受试者对施加的干预都采取了补偿性反应，并表现出肢体内部和肢体间的适应性。总体而言，参与者表现出异常步态，这意味着下肢肌肉骨骼进行了调整，就好像是为了补偿髋部或踝部的异常。
