• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.11 no.10
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• pp.3658-3665
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• 2010

As the population of elderly people and disabled people are increased, various demands for human welfare using robot system are raised. Especially autonomous rehabilitation system using robot could reduce the human effort while maintaining the its intrinsic efficacy. This study deals with mobile gait rehabilitation system which combined with BWS (Body Weight Support) for training of elderly and handicapped people who suffer the muscle force weakness of lower extremity. BWS which is designed by kinematic analysis of body lifting characteristics and walking guide system are integrated with main control system and wheeled platform. This mobile platform is operated by UCS (User Command System) and autonomous trajectory planning algorithm. Finally, through the EMG (Electromyography) signal measuring and its analysis for subject, performance and feasibility of developed system is verified.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.115-123
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• 2015

Purpose: The aim of this study was to elucidate the coordination patterns of the sternocleidomastoid and posterior cervical muscles in response to symmetrical and asymmetrical jaw functions in normal adults. Methods: Twenty-seven healthy volunteers (8 females, 19 males; mean age, $30.4{\pm}2.5$ years) participated in this study. Surface electromyography (EMG) was used to record activities in the masseter, suprahyoid, sternocleidomastoid, and posterior cervical muscles at rest and during maximum tooth clenching, biting of a cotton roll with the anterior teeth, unilateral biting of a cotton roll with the posterior teeth, bilateral biting of cotton rolls with the posterior teeth, and jaw opening while seated. Normalized amplitude, activity indices, and asymmetry indices were compared between the muscles and the jaw tasks. Results: During symmetrical jaw functions (e.g., tooth clenching, biting with the anterior teeth, bilateral biting with the posterior teeth, jaw opening), the sternocleidomastoid and posterior cervical muscles showed elevated EMG amplitudes compared with the resting condition. The co-activation pattern of the sternocleidomastoid muscle was more pronounced than those of the posterior cervical muscles during these tasks. During asymmetrical jaw functions (e.g., unilateral biting with the posterior teeth), the ipsilateral sternocleidomastoid and masseter muscles showed higher contraction activity than did the contralateral muscles, but the contralateral posterior cervical muscles were more active than the ipsilateral muscles. Conclusions: The sternocleidomastoid and posterior cervical muscles were shown to be co-activated and coordinated anteroposteriorly or bilaterally according to symmetrical or asymmetrical jaw function. These results suggest an integrated neural control mechanism for the jaw and neck muscles, and provide further evidence supporting the intimate functional coupling between the trigeminal and cervical neuromuscular systems.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.57 no.9
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• pp.1669-1673
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• 2008

A new cycle ergometer using a Magneto-Rheological (MR) rotary brake system has been developed for rehabilitation of hemiplegia patients to reduce uneven pedaling characteristics. For this purpose, a control method to adjust the resistance of the MR rotary brake in real time based on the magnitude of the muscular force exerted by the subject has been devised so that the mechanical resistance to the pedaling can be minimized when the affected leg was engaged for pedaling. A series of experiments were carried out with and without the engagement of this real-time control mode of MR rotary brake at different pedaling rate to find out the effect of the real-time control mode. The characteristics of the pedaling for these specific conditions were analyzed based on the variations in angular velocities of the pedal unit. The results showed that the variations in the angular velocities were decreased by 42.9% with the control mode. The asymmetry of pedaling between dominant and non-dominant leg was 19.63% in non-control mode and 1.97% in the control mode. The characteristics of electromyography(EMG) in the lower limbs were also measured. The observation showed that Integrated EMG(IEMG) reduced with the control mode. Therefore, the new bicycle system using MR brake with the real time control of mechanical resistance was found to be effective in recovering the normal pedaling pattern by reducing unbalanced pedaling characteristics caused by disparity of muscular strength between affected and unaffected leg.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.167-174
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• 2021

Objective: Single leg bridge exercise (SLBE) improves trunk muscle activation and provides muscle stability by aligning joints related to posture. This preliminary study aimed to investigate the effects of SLBE on abdominal muscle activation in subacute stroke patients. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Fifteen subacute stroke patients (9 males, 6 females) voluntarily participated in this study. SLBE was performed on the affected side. Each individual patient performed an SLBE ten times in three sets and was asked to hold their position for 5 s. Muscles activity was recorded using a surface electromyography (EMG) system before and after the SLBE. A surface EMG system was used to analyze the muscle activity during general bridge exercise, including the rectus abdominis (RA), internal oblique (IO), and external oblique (EO) abdominal muscles. Results: Muscle activity of both EO and IO on the affected side significantly increased (p<0.05), whereas the muscle activity of the RA and the three muscles on the unaffected side did not show a significant difference. In addition, improvement in muscle asymmetry of the EO and IO showed a significant change after SLBE (p<0.05). Conclusions: SLBE is effective in activating the abdominal muscles of stroke patients on the affected side and is a helpful exercise intervention that activates the muscles to transform asymmetric abdominal muscles into symmetric patterns.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.227-235
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to analyze differences of 45minutes up-hill walking depending on hiking poles and steady walking time. Seven healthy men volunteered for this experiment. Each of them performed up-hill walking with hiking poles and without hiking poles at speed of 3.5km/h during 45minutes on a treadmill. The treadmill was set 25% up-hill inclination. The lower extremity 4 muscles activity including rectus femoris, tibialis anterior, gastrocnemius, biceps femoris was recorded and assessed by using EMG. And Heart rate(HR) and Rating of perceived exertion(RPE) were recorded and analyzed by 15minutes interval. The statistical analysis was two-way ANOVA with repeated measures to compare effects of hiking poles and steady walking time. The level of statistical significance for all tests was P<.05. The results of this study were following : Integrated EMG about four individual muscles doesn't have statistical significancy. However, the sum of IEMG of the four muscles was decreased some with poles than without poles(p<.0l) and IEMG about four muscles was rut different on steady walking time. Second, HR was increased significantly as time up(P<.01). RPE was decreased some with poles than without poles(P<.05) and RPE was increased significantly as time up(P<.01).

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.253-259
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• 2017

Conventional upper extremity rehabilitation paradigm after brain injury has several shortcomings that is monotonous, simple, and repetitive in exercises over a long period of time, thereby causing training efficiency to decline as a consequence of low interest and participation. To resolve this issue, this paper proposes a new rehabilitative program integrating a wearable device integrated with EMG and motion sensor and a mobile game for the upper limbs' rehabilitative training. The developed wearable device is manufactured in the form of band, making it easy to wear. The mobile game is designed to enable rehabilitative training through games reflective of flexion, extension, abduction, and adduction identified by motion sensors along with grasp motion recognized by EMG signals measured from the wearable device. It also provides a tailored rehabilitative environment suitable for individual patients based on difficulty adjustments. As a consequence of applying the developed program to 14 brain injury in need of the upper limb rehabilitation and taking surveys on the utility of the developed rehabilitative program, the responses indicated that the developed rehabilitative program is far much more interesting and fun than the conventional rehabilitative program, further to the desire of those surveyed to reuse the developed program in the future.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.9-14
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• 2003

Sleep stages have been useful indicator to check a person's comfortableness in a sleep, But the traditional method of scoring sleep stages with polysomnography based on the integrated analysis of the electroencephalogram(EEG), electrooculogram(EOG), electrocardiogram(ECG), and electromyogram(EMG) is too restrictive to take a comfortable sleep for the participants, While the sympathetic nervous system is predominant during a wakefulness, the parasympathetic nervous system is more active during a sleep, Cardiovascular function is controlled by this autonomic nervous system, So, we have interpreted the heart rate variability(HRV) among sleep stages to find a simple method of classifying sleep stages, Six healthy male college students participated, and 12 night sleeps were recorded in this research, Sleep stages based on the "Standard scoring system for sleep stage" were automatically classified with polysomnograph by measuring EEG, EOG, ECG, and EMG(chin and leg) for the six participants during sleeping, To extract only the ECG signals from the polysomnograph and to interpret the HRV, a Sleep Data Acquisition/Analysis System was devised in this research, The power spectrum of HRV was divided into three ranges; low frequency(LF), medium frequency(MF), and high frequency(HF), It showed that, the LF/HF ratio of the Stage W(Wakefulness) was 325% higher than that of the Stage 2(p＜.05), 628% higher than that of the Stage 3(p＜.001), and 800% higher than that of the Stage 4(p＜.001), Moreover, this ratio of the Stage 4 was 427% lower than that of the Stage REM (rapid eye movement) (p＜.05) and 418% lower than that of the Stage l(p＜.05), respectively, It was observed that the LF/HF ratio decreased monotonously as the sleep stage changes from the Stage W, Stage REM, Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, to Stage 4, While the difference of the MF/(LF+HF) ratio among sleep Stages was not significant, it was higher in the Stage REM and Stage 3 than that of in the other sleep stages in view of descriptive statistic analysis for the sample group.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.197-203
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• 2017

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine how exercise intensity affects muscle activity and kinematic variables during squat. Method: Fifteen trainers with >5 years of experience were recruited. For the electromyography (EMG) measurements, four surface electrodes were attached to both sides of the lower extremity to monitor the rectus femoris (RF) and biceps femoris. Three digital camcorders were used to obtain three-dimensional kinematics of the body. Each subject performed a squat in different conditions (40% one-repetition maximum [40%1RM], 60%1RM, and 80%1RM). For each trial being analyzed, three critical instants and two phases were identified from the video recording. For each dependent variable, one-way analysis of variance with repeated measures was used to determine whether there were significant differences among the three different conditions (p<.05). When a significant difference was found, post hoc analyses were performed using the contrast procedure. Results: The results showed that the average integrated EMG values of the RF were significantly greater in 80%1RM than in 40%1RM during the extension phase. The temporal parameter was significantly longer in 80%1RM than in 40%1RM and 60%1RM during the extension phase. The joint angle of the knee was significantly greater in 80%1RM than in 40%1RM at flexion. The range of motion of the knee was significantly less in 80%1RM than in 40%1RM and 60%1RM during the flexion phase and the extension phase. The angular velocity was significantly less in 80%1RM than in 40%1RM and 60%1RM during the extension phase. Conclusion: Generally, the increase of muscle strength decreases the pace of motion based on the relation between the strength and speed of muscle. In this study, we also found that the increase of exercise intensity may contribute to the increase of the muscle activity of the RF and the running time in the extension phase during squat motion. We observed that increased exercise intensity may hinder the regulation of the range of motion and joint angle. It is suitable to perform consistent movements while controlling the proper range of motion to maximize the benefit of resistance training.

• 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 The Korean Society of Integrative Medicine
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.187-197
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• 2022

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the changes in the muscle activity of the trunk stabilizer muscles before and after incorporating Pilates breathing during three types of Pilates chair exercises. Methods: This study included 33 healthy men and women in their 20's; they were recruited according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. sEMG was used to measure the changes in the muscle activity in the internal oblique/transverse abdominis, rectus abdominis, and erector spinae during the three types of Pilates chair movements (footwork, twist footwork, and bridging) without and with the Pilates breathing integration. The muscle activities of the trunk stabilizers between without and with Pilates breathing were statistically analyzed and compared. Results: The internal oblique/transverse abdominis showed an increase and a significant difference in the muscle activity in all three movements of footwork, twist footwork, and bridging after the Pilates breathing integration (p<.001). The muscle activity of the rectus abdominis (p<.05) and the erector spinae (p<.05) also increased and showed a significant difference after the Pilates breathing incorporation, except in the bridging movement for the erector spinae. The increase in the rate after integrating Pilates breathing was relatively greater in internal oblique/transverse abdominis than in other muscles. Conclusion: When Pilates breathing was applied, the activities of the trunk stabilizer muscles increased significantly and immediately in all three movements of Pilates chair footwork, twist footwork, and bridging. This means that the use of breathing is expected to have a positive and immediate effect on the activation of trunk stabilizers, thus indicating that it can possibly be an effective re-enforcing tool to promote trunk stability when it is integrated to the Pilates chair exercise. Incorporating Pilates breathing also seemed to have a tendency to activate the deep trunk stabilizer muscles more than the superficial stabilizer muscles.