• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.84-90
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to assess the test-retest reliability of heart rate (HR) and velocity measurements during peak effort and free treadmill walking tests in older patients with gait-impaired chronic hemiparetic stroke and control group. Twenty-two adults (13 men, 9 women; mean age, $73.7{\pm}5.2$ yrs) with chronic hemiparetic stroke are the experimental group. Nineteen elderly people (5 men, 14 women; mean age, $72.3{\pm}3.5$ yrs) were recruited as control group. Patients had mild to moderate chronic hemiparetic gait deficits, making handrail support necessary during treadmill walking. Free and peak effort treadmill walking tests were measured and then repeated at least two days later. Reliability was calculated from HR and walking velocity during free and peak effort treadmill walking test. Among the people who had strokes, HR [ICC(2,1)=.85, r=.86] and velocity [ICC(2,1)=.93, r=.93] were good parameters during free testing. Maximal testing generated good results for HR [ICC(2,1)=.81, r=.82] and velocity [ICC(2,1)=.96, r=.96] with the chronic hemiparetic stroke. In elderly people, HR [ICC(2,1)=.59, r=.62] and velocity [ICC(2,1)=.77, r=.76] were moderately reliable during free testing. Maximal testing produced moderate parameters for HR [ICC(2,1)=.74, r=.74] and velocity [ICC(2,1)=.66, r=.66] in the elderly. This study provides that free and maximal treadmill testing produce highly reliable HR and velocity measurements in adults with chronic hemiplegia using minimal handrail support.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.939-947
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• 2010

With the rising numbers of elderly and disabled people, the demand for welfare services using a robotic system and not involving human effort is likewise increasing. This study deals with a mobile-robot system combined with a BWS (Body Weight Support) system for gait rehabilitation. The BWS system is designed via the kinematic analysis of the robot's body-lifting characteristics and of the walking guide system that controls the total rehabilitation system integrated in the mobile robot. This mobile platform is operated by utilizing the AGV (Autonomous Guided Vehicle) driving algorithm. Especially, the method that integrates geometric path tracking and obstacle avoidance for a nonholonomic mobile robot is applied so that the system can be operated in an area where the elderly users are expected to be situated, such as in a public hospital or a rehabilitation center. The mobile robot follows the path by moving through the turning radius supplied by the pure-pursuit method which is one of the existing geometric path-tracking methods. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through the real experiments those are conducted for path tracking with static- and dynamic-obstacle avoidance. Finally, through the EMG (Electromyography) signal measurement of the subject, the performance of the proposed system in a real operation condition is evaluated.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.203-209
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• 2020

As the number of people with gait disorders increases, the demand for using wheelchairs increases and the area of a ctivity for people with disabilities expands, thereby they increasing the demand for riding comfortability in various driving environments. Therefore, this study is to develop an entry-level active suspension system that apply to wheelchairs and to evaluate its usability. The suspension applied in this paper consists of a coil spring, a shock absorber, a control module to control the strength of the shock absorber, and a road surface condition monitoring system. A wheelchair occupant secures the riding comfort by adjusting the coil strength of the shock absorber in 12 steps according to various road conditions. Therefore, the mechanical properties were evaluated through the structural analysis of the suspension system, and the tendency toward the magnitude of the road surface vibration attenuated according to the rigidity of the suspension through the vibration test was attempted. In conclusion, as a result of structural analysis of the suspension system, stress in a range lower than the yield strength of the material was generated, and the vibration test showed the effect of attenuating the vibration generated from the road surface when the stiffness of the suspension was adjusted.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.38-44
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• 2002

A walking training robot is proposed to provide stable and comfortable walking supports by reducing body weight load partially and a force control of an arm of walking training robot using sliding mode controller is also proposed. The current gait training apparatus in hospital are ineffective for the difficulty in keeping constant unloading level and for the constraint of patients' free walking. The proposed walking training robot effectively unloads body weight during walking. The walking training robot consists of an unloading manipulator and a mobile platform. The manipulator driven by an electro-mechanical linear mechanism unloads body weight in various levels. The mobile platform is wheel type, which allows patients to walt freely. The developed unloading system has advantages such as low noise level, lightweight, low manufacturing cost and low power consumption. A system model fur the manipulator is established using Lagrange's equation. To unload the weight of the patients, sliding mode control with p-control is adopted. Both control responses with a weight and human walking control responses are analyzed through experimental implementation to demonstrate performance characteristics of the proposed force controller.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.79-86
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• 2015

This study examined the effects of trunk stabilization exercise on balance and trunk control in children with spastic diplegia. Four children with ambulatory spastic diplegia participated in the trunk stabilization exercise program using a Both Sides Utilized (BOSU) ball, 30 minutes a day, two times a week for eight weeks. Outcome variables included the pediatric balance scale, trunk control movement scale and multifidus thickness using ultrasound image. After trunk stabilization exercise, there was statistically no significant improvement in pediatric balance scale, trunk control movement scale and multifidus thickness. However, individual outcomes were observed with some positive changes. Balance, trunk control movement, and thickness of multifidus were found to be improved. Trunk stabilization exercise using a BOSU ball could improve trunk control and increase the thickness of multifidus in children with spastic diplegia. Further investigation is needed to evaluate subjects according to type of cerebral palsy and to understand the relationship between postural control and gait.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.422-428
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• 2018

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of trunk stability exercise on knee function, balance and gait in patients who underwent total knee arthroplasty. The subjects of this study were recruited from individuals diagnosed with degenerative arthritis who had undergone total knee arthroplasty. Overall, 24 patients were randomly divided into a control groups and an experimental groups (12 each). The trunk stability exercise was conducted for 4 weeks with three exercises developed in a previous study. The measurement tools used were knee function measurements based on the Lysholm knee score, balance ability measured using a test of TUG and OLS, and a walking ability test measured using a 10MWT. Pre and post test results were within groups were compared using the paired t-test, whole differences between groups were compared using the independent t-test. The experimental group showed significantly enhanced results relative to the control group (p<0.05). Based on these results, trunk stability exercise in parallel with knee joint therapy effectively improves the recovery of patients with total knee arthroplasty.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.17 no.12
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• pp.169-175
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• 2000

Stable and comfortable walking supports, which can reduce the body weight load partially, are needed for the recovering patients from neurologic disease and orthopedic procedures. In this paper, the development of a manipulator of rehabilitation robot for the patients with walking disabilities are studied. A force controller using pneumatic actuators is designed and implemented to the human friendly rehabilitation robot considering the safety of patients, reliability of the system, effectiveness of the unloading control and economic maintenance of the system. The mechanism of the unloading manipulator is devised to improve the sensibility for the movement of the patients such as direction and velocity. For the unloading force control, fuzzy control algorithm is adopted to reduce the partial body weight and suppress the unwanted fluctuation of the body weight load to the weak legs due to the unnatural working of the patients with walking disabilities. The effectiveness of the force control is experimentally demonstrated.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.124-131
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• 2017

This paper present a novel approach to control the lower body power assistive exoskeleton system of a HEXAR-CR35 aimed at improving a muscular strength. More specifically the control of based on the human intention is crucial of importance to ensure intuitive and dexterous motion with the human. In this contribution, we proposed the detection algorithm of the human intention using the MCRS which are developed to measure the contraction of the muscle with variation of the circumference. The proposed algorithm provides a joint motion of exoskeleton corresponding the relate muscles. The main advantages of the algorithm are its simplicity, computational efficiency to control one joint of the HEXAR-CR35 which are consisted knee-active type exoskeleton (the other joints are consisted with the passive or quasi-passive joints that can be arranged by analyzing of the human joint functions). As a consequence, the motion of exoskeleton is generated according to the gait phase: swing and stance phase which are determined by the foot insole sensors. The experimental evaluation of the proposed algorithm is achieved in walking with the exoskeleton while carrying the external mass in the back side.

• Journal of Korean Physical Therapy Science
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.75-82
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• 2006

Purpose: The purpose of this experimental study have been testifying about reactive muscle control regarding sternocleidomastoid and psoas. Low back pain patient do not sit-up exercise without abnormality of trunk flexor. The reason of problem is unbalance sternocleidomastoid and psoas. According to George J, Goodheart who have been developing Applied Kinesiology (A. K.) since reactive muscle recognized gait testing in 1964. Materials and Methods: From September, 2004 to February, 2005, I have controled sternocleidomastoid and psoas. It is applied to the patients who are unable sit up exercise at Yang-Dong local clinic, Yang-Pyung county, Kyung-Gi Do province in Korea. 24 Patients divided 2 groups. A group is applied general physical therapy. Also B group is added reactive muscle control from M.E.M.P.T.(Korean society of muscle and energy monitoring physical therapy) Results : The results of this study follow. 1. Possible sit up group 8 persons of the second group. 2. Not possible sit up group the others. Conclusion: The study present that reactive muscle control sternocliedomastoid and psoas is useful in patient with low back pain is difficult to sit up.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.172-181
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• 2023

This paper presents research on the stability of control for a quadruped robot with two different leg structure designs. The focus of the research is on the design and analysis of the leg structures in terms of their impact on the stability and robustness of the robot's motion. First, a static analysis was performed in the simulation to compare the structural strength of the legs when the same force was applied. Secondly, two quadruped robots were built, each equipped with differently designed legs, and performed trot gait walking in the real world. And the states of the robots and the torques of each joint were analyzed and compared. In conclusion, based on the results of structural analysis in simulation and the actual walking experiments with the robots, it was demonstrated that the legs designed to be structurally robust improved the control stability of the quadruped robot.