Department of Human Neurosciences, University of Rome Sapienza, 00185 Rome, Italy.
Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Epidemiology and Hygiene, INAIL, Monte Porzio Catone, 00185 Rome, Italy.
Sensors (Basel). 2020 Apr 29;20(9):2543. doi: 10.3390/s20092543.
The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of the level of amputation and various prosthetic devices on the muscle activation of the sound limb in people with unilateral transfemoral and transtibial amputation. We calculated the global coactivation of 12 muscles using the time-varying multimuscle coactivation function method in 37 subjects with unilateral transfemoral amputation (10, 16, and 11 with mechanical, electronic, and bionic prostheses, respectively), 11 subjects with transtibial amputation, and 22 healthy subjects representing the control group. The results highlighted that people with amputation had a global coactivation temporal profile similar to that of healthy subjects. However, amputation increased the level of the simultaneous activation of many muscles during the loading response and push-off phases of the gait cycle and decreased it in the midstance and swing subphases. This increased coactivation probably plays a role in prosthetic gait asymmetry and energy consumption. Furthermore, people with amputation and wearing electronic prosthesis showed lower global coactivation when compared with people wearing mechanical and bionic prostheses. These findings suggest that the global lower limb coactivation behavior can be a useful tool to analyze the motor control strategies adopted and the ability to adapt to the prosthetic device.
本研究旨在分析截肢水平和各种假肢对单侧股骨和胫骨截肢者健肢肌肉激活的影响。我们使用时变多肌肉协同激活函数方法计算了 37 名单侧股骨截肢者（10 名、16 名和 11 名分别使用机械、电子和仿生假肢）、11 名胫骨截肢者和 22 名健康受试者的 12 块肌肉的整体协同激活情况。结果表明，截肢者的整体协同激活时间曲线与健康受试者相似。然而，截肢增加了在步态周期的负重反应和蹬离阶段许多肌肉同时激活的程度，并在中间支撑和摆动亚阶段减少了这种激活。这种协同激活的增加可能在假肢步态不对称和能量消耗中发挥作用。此外，与佩戴机械和仿生假肢的人相比，佩戴电子假肢的截肢者的整体协同激活较低。这些发现表明，下肢整体协同激活行为可以作为分析所采用的运动控制策略和适应假肢能力的有用工具。
