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Improving the Standing Balance of People with Spinal Cord Injury Through the Use of a Powered Ankle-Foot Orthosis

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Wearable Robotics: Challenges and Trends

Part of the book series: Biosystems & Biorobotics ((BIOSYSROB,volume 16))

Abstract

In this study, our goal was to improve the standing balance of people with a Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) by using a powered Ankle-Foot orthosis acting in the sagittal plane. We tested four different controllers on two SCI subjects that have a lesion at a low level. In the experiments the subjects repeatedly had to recover from pelvis perturbations, while receiving ankle assistive torques from the orthosis. We found that the controllers that use centroidal dynamics as input parameters were able to provide proper support to the subjects after a perturbation had been applied, even though they worked against the subjects after they had recovered from the perturbation. These preliminary results show the potential of balancing controllers that operate in Center of Mass-space.

SYMBITRON is supported by EU research program FP7-ICT-2013-10 (contract #611626). SYMBITRON is coordinated by University of Twente.

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomechanical Engineering, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Amber Emmens, Edwin van Asseldonk & Herman van der Kooij

  2. Laboratory of Robotic Neurorehabilitation, Neurological and Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Department A, Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy

    Iolanda Pisotta

  3. Laboratory of Spinal Rehabilitation, Neurological and Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Department A, Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy

    Marcella Masciullo

Authors
  1. Amber Emmens
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  2. Iolanda Pisotta
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  3. Marcella Masciullo
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  4. Edwin van Asseldonk
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  5. Herman van der Kooij
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Amber Emmens .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Spanish National Research Council, Cajal Institute Spanish National Research Council, Madrid, Spain

    José González-Vargas

  2. Spanish National Research Council, Cajal Institute Spanish National Research Council, Madrid, Spain

    Jaime Ibáñez

  3. Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering, Houston, Texas, USA

    Jose L. Contreras-Vidal

  4. University of Twente , Enschede, The Netherlands

    Herman van der Kooij

  5. Spanish National Research Council, Cajal Institute Spanish National Research Council, Madrid, Spain

    José Luis Pons

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Emmens, A., Pisotta, I., Masciullo, M., van Asseldonk, E., van der Kooij, H. (2017). Improving the Standing Balance of People with Spinal Cord Injury Through the Use of a Powered Ankle-Foot Orthosis. In: González-Vargas, J., Ibáñez, J., Contreras-Vidal, J., van der Kooij, H., Pons, J. (eds) Wearable Robotics: Challenges and Trends. Biosystems & Biorobotics, vol 16. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46532-6_68

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46532-6_68

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-46531-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-46532-6

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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