• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.478-487
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• 2022

Objective: This study was conducted to analyze the effect of wearable complex muscle support system on energy efficiency during walking in elderly. Design: Cross sectional study Methods: Twenty healthy elderly participated in this study. All subjects performed a 6 minuteswalk test(6MWT) and stair climbing test in dual, slack and no suit conditions. In each condition, oxygen consumption(VO₂), metabolic equivalents(METs), energy expenditure measures(EEm), physiological cost index(PCI), walking velocity and heartrate were measured. Through repeated measured ANOVA, it was investigated whether there was a statistically significant difference in the measurement results between the three conditions. Results: In over-ground walking, VO₂, METs and EEm showed significant differences between no suit and slack conditions(p<0.05). In stair climbing, VO₂ showed significant difference between slack and dual conditions(p<0.05). Also, METs and EEm showed significant differences between no suit and slack, and between slack and dual conditions(p<0.05). Conclusions: Wearing the wearable complex muscle support system for elderly does not have much benefit in energy metabolism efficiency in over-ground, but there is a benefit in stair walking.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.133-138
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• 2014

In this paper, a simple but efficient gait recognition method using spatial-temporal silhouette analysis is proposed. For each image sequence, a background subtraction algorithm and a PBAS(pixel based adaptive segmenter) procedure are first used to segment the moving silhouettes of a walking figure. Then, to identify people, the step count and stride length of walking figure is obtained in silhouette images. Experimental results on a CASIA dataset including 124 subjects demonstrate the validity of the proposed method. Also, the proposed system are believed to have a sufficient feasibility for the application to gait recognition.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.15-22
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• 2012

The mechanical system of wearable walking assist robot needs to be optimized for adapting with human body structure and the planned control algorithm should have a secure procedure when a incongruity situation which can cause musculoskeletal injury occurs because a wearable robot is attached to a body. The understanding of walking or musculoskeletal motions characteristics must be preceeded and analyzed for developing novel wearable walking assist robot. In this study we tried to find out the capacities of powers and torques of joint actuators to design optimized performances of system and to obtain the analysis data to figure out the characteristics of joint movements during some types of walk. The major types of walk and motion are stair climbing and descending, sit-to-stand motion, and slope walking. In this study all these motions were analyzed experimentally except slope walking.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.199-206
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• 2016

Most Koreans walk having their toes in or out, because of their sedentary lifestyles. In addition, using smartphone while walking makes having a desirable walking posture even more difficult. The goal of this study is to make a simple system which easily analyze and inform any person his or her personal walking habit. To discriminate gait patterns, we developed a gait monitoring system using a 3-axis accelerometer and a foot pressure monitoring system. The developed system, with an accelerometer and a few pressure sensors, can acquire subject's foot pressure and how tilted his or her torso is. We analyzed the relationship between type of gate and sensor data using this information. As the result of analysis, we could find out that statistical parameters like standard deviation and root mean square are good for discriminating among torso postures, and k-nearest neighbor algorithm is good at clustering gait patterns. The developed system is expected to be applicable to medical or athletic fields at a low price.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.81-89
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• 2017

In this paper, we propose a gait pattern recognition method for intelligent prosthesis that enables walking in various environments of femoral amputees. The proposed gait mode changing method is a single sensor based algorithm which can discriminate gait surface and gait phase using only strain gauges sensor, and it is designed to simplify the algorithm based on multiple sensors of existing intelligent prosthesis and to reduce cost of prosthesis system. For the recognition algorithm, we analyzed characteristics of the ground reaction force generated during gait of normal person and defined gait step segmentation and gait detection condition, A gait analyzer was constructed for the gait experiment in the environment similar to the femoral amputee. The validity of the paper was verified through the defined detection conditions and fabricated instruments. The accuracy of the algorithm based on the single sensor was 95%. Based on the proposed single sensor-based algorithm, it is considered that the intelligent prosthesis system can be made inexpensive, and the user can directly grasp the state of the walking surface and shift the walking mode. It is confirmed that it is possible to change the automatic walking mode to switch the walking mode that is suitable for the walking mode.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.111-116
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• 2019

With the recent acceleration of industrial technologies and active research, wearable robot technologies have been applied to various fields. To study the utility of wearable robots, basic research on kinetic mechanisms of the human body, bio-signal analysis, and system control are essential. In this study, we investigated the basic structure of a wearable system and the operating principles of a driving mechanism. The control system and supporting structure, which comprise the driving mechanism, were designed and manufactured. Motion and load analyses were performed simultaneously for the design of the kinematic drive, and the driving mechanism was constructed by analyzing walking motion. The operating conditions of the cylinder were verified by stride via driving experiments. Further, the accuracy and responsiveness of the system were confirmed by comparison with actual motion, and the system safety was validated by applying loads.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.47-57
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• 2016

In this paper, we measured human body signals in order to verify a active harness system that we developed for gait and balance training. The experimental procedure was validated by tests with 20 healthy male subjects. They conducted motions of Activities of Daily Living(ADL)(Normal Walking, Stand-to-Sit, Sit-to-Stand, Stair Walking Up, and Stair Walking Down) according to body weight support rates (0%, 30%, 50% of subjects' body weight). The effectiveness of the active harness system is verified by using the results of foot pressure distribution. In normal walking, the decrease of fore-foot pressure, lateral soleus muscle and biceps femoris muscle were remarkable. The result of stand-to-sit results motion indicated that the rear-foot pressure and tibialis anterior muscle activities exceptionally decreased according to body weight support. The stair walking down show the marked drop of fore-foot pressure and rectus femoris muscle activities. The sit-to-stand and stair walking up activities were inadequate about the effect of body weight support because the velocity of body weight support system was slower than male's activity.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2020

PURPOSE: Many patients with stroke have difficulties in walking with foot-drop. Various types of ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs) have been developed, but their weight needs to be reduced with the assistance of the ankle dorsiflexor. Therefore, an elastic AFO (E-AFO) was devised that not only improves the stability and flexibility of the ankle but also assists with ankle dorsiflexion while walking. This study examined the effects of an E-AFO, on the walking patterns of foot-drop patients with stroke. METHODS: Fourteen patients walked with and without an E-AFO, and the gait parameters were assessed using the GAITRite system. The spatiotemporal data on the gait patterns of stroke patients with foot-drop were compared using paired t-tests; the level of statistical significance was set to α<.05. RESULTS: No significant differences were observed in the velocity (p=.066) and affecte+d step length (p=.980), but the affected and less-affected stance (p=.022, p=.002) and swing time (p=.012, p=.005) were significantly different. The E-AFO produced a significant difference in the less-affected step length (p=.032). CONCLUSION: The E-AFO has a significant effect on the walking patterns of individuals with foot-drop and stroke. The E-AFO could be a useful assistive device for gait training in stroke patients.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.23-30
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• 2012

In this study, we developed a wireless rehabilitation auditory feedback gait training system for symmetrical weight-bearing in patient with CVA. The device consists of an instantaneous shoe equipped with two load-cell sensors. Auditory feedback can be applied according to the weight-bearing. For gait patterns analysis, cadence, walking velocity, stance/swing phase ratio and gait cycle were examined. The clinical test with six healthy volunteers and two hemiplegic patients was performed applying the auditory feedback system. Both normal subjects and hemiplegic patients were increased strength on weight-bearing in affected limb, walking velocity, and cadence after biofeedback device. Also, the stance time with weight-bearing was increased while the swing time was decreased in gait phase. It can be expected that by using the feedback system, the patient with lower limb disorder will be able to reach a better quality of weight-bearing during gait.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.315-321
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• 2017

This paper is a study on the design and realization of Pedestrian navigation service system for the visually impaired. As it is an user interface considering visually impaired, voice recognition functioned smartphone was used as the input tool and the Osteoacusis headset, which can vocally guide directions while recognizing the surrounding environment sound, was used as the output tool. Unlike the pre-existing pedestrian navigation smartphone apps, the developed system guides walking direction by the scale of the left and right stereo sound of the headset wearing, and the voice guidance about the forked or curved path is given several meters before according to the speed of the user, and the user is immediately warned of walking opposite direction or proceeding off the path. The system can acquire stable and reliable directional information using the motion tracker with the dynamic heading accuracy of 1.5 degrees. In order to overcome GPS position error, we proposed a robust trajectory planning algorithm for position error. Experimental results for the developed system show that the average directional angle error is 6.82 degrees (standard deviation: 5.98) in the experimental path, which can be stated that it stably navigated the user relatively.