Research Article
Hiromi Akahira, Yuko Yamaguchi
Abstract
Orthotic gait in paraplegic persons is a “stiff-leg” gait, which is a gait with the knee locked in full extension position. We developed a motor-assisted knee motion device with the use of a pair of linear electric actuator attached to the knee joint of a conventional reciprocal gait orthosis (Advanced Reciprocating Gait Orthosis: ARGO). The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of dynamic knee motion on lower limb muscle electromyographic (EMG) activity during orthotic gait. Six motor complete spinal cord injured persons participated, and the subjects were asked to walk on a treadmill with two types of orthoses; Knee-ARGO and Normal-ARGO. The results demonstrated that magnitude of EMG activity in the gastrocnemius and the rectus femoris muscles was significantly increased by an accomplished dynamic knee motion. These changes might be attributed to the occurrence of an additional afferent neural input with the knee motion. The present results suggest that the assisted knee motion by generating powered device have a potential to activate the neuromuscular function in the paralyzed lower limb.