• The Journal of Korean Academy of Orthopedic Manual Physical Therapy
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.25-32
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• 2011

Background: This study was to examine the effect of applying leg exercise using visual informations on improving stroke patient's muscle power, balance and gait. Methods: The subjects of this study were hemiplegic patients by stroke, 30 patients were picked up, who were agreed with this research and were having hospital care for 8 weeks at RS, RB and HH medical centers. The study group was 15 and comparison group was 15, totally 30 patients were confirmed. leg exercise using visual informations was applied to study group, leg exercise without visual informations was applied to comparison group. These were proceeded for 8 weeks (5 days a week, 20 minutes a day), change of muscle power, balance and gait was checked to investigate the effect. Electromyography apparatus was used for checking muscle power, K-BBS (Korean version of Berg Balance Scale) and COP (center of pressure) were used for balance, then Functional Gait Assessment (FGA), timed up and go test (TUG) were used for checking the capacity of gait. Results: Vastus lateralis (p=.002), biceps femoris (p=.000), K-BBS (p=.000), COP (p=.007), FGA (p=.002), TUG (p=.009) are significant difference between the two groups. Conclusion: This study showed that visual informations impact change of muscle activity, balance and locomotor ability in stroke patients.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.1-6
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• 2011

Purpose: We investigated the effects of single-leg stance training on standing balance and mobility in patients with subacute hemiplegia. Methods: Seventeen matched subjects were assigned randomly to the experimental group or the control group. The experimental group comprising of 8 subjects received single-leg stance training and conventional physical therapy interventions 5 times per week for 4 weeks. The control group comprising of 9 subjects received only conventional physical therapy interventions 5 times per week for 4 weeks. Outcome measures were assessed before and after 4 weeks of intervention using the Berg Balance Scale (BBS), gait speed, and weight bearing index of the affected side. Results: Both the exercise groups showed significant improvements in BBS, gait speed, and weight bearing index (p<0.05). After 4 weeks of intervention, there were statistically significant differences in BBS and weight bearing index between the two groups (p<0.05). Conclusion: These findings suggest that conventional physical therapy interventions along with single-leg stance training could be more effective than conventional physical therapy alone for improving standing balance and mobility in patients with subacute hemiplegia.

• Transactions of the KSME C: Technology and Education
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.153-165
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• 2013

The established gait analysis studies have regarded leg as one single spring. If we can design a knee-ankle actuating mechanism as a primary actuator for supporting knee extension, it might be possible to revolutionary store or release elastic strain energy, which is consumed during the gait cycle, and as a result leg stiffness is expected to increase. An ankle joint actuating mechanism that stores and releases the energy in ankle joint is expected to support and solve excessive artificial leg stiffness caused by the knee actuator (primary actuator) to a reasonable extent. If unnecessary kinematic energy is released with the artificial speed reduction control designed to prevent increase in gait speed caused by increase in time passed, it naturally brings question to the effectiveness of the actuator. As opposed to the already established studies, the authors are currently developing knee-ankle two actuator system under the concept of increasing lower limb stiffness by controlling the speed of gait in relative angular velocity of the two segments. Therefore, the author is convinced that compensatory mechanism caused by knee actuating must exist only in ankle joint. Ankle joint compensatory mechanism can be solved by reverse-examining the change in metatarso-phalangeal joint (MTPJ) tilt angle (${\theta}_1=0^{\circ}$, ${\theta}_2=17^{\circ}$, ${\theta}_3=30^{\circ}$) and the effect of change in gait speed on knee activity.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.503-509
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• 2015

In this paper, we designed and tested an ankle joint mechanism for a gait rehabilitation robot. Gait rehabilitation programs are designed to improve the natural leg motion of patients who have lost their walking capabilities by accident or disease. Strengthening the muscles of the lower-limbs and stimulation of the nervous system corresponding to walking helps patients to walk again using gait assistive devices. It is an obvious requirement that the rehabilitation system's motion should be similar to and as natural as the normal gait. However, the system being used for gait rehabilitation does not pay much attention to ankle joints, which play an important role in correct walking as the motion of the ankle should reflect the movement of the center of gravity (COG) of the body. Consequently, we have designed an ankle mechanism that ensures the safety of the patient as well as efficient gait training. Also, even patients with low leg muscle strength are able to operate the ankle joint due to the direct-drive mechanism without a reducer. This safety feature prevents any possible adverse load on the human ankle. The additional degree of freedom for the roll motion achieves a gait pattern which is similar to the normal gait and with a greater degree of comfort.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1105-1112
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• 2020

Gait recognition, as a promising biometric, can be used in video-based surveillance and other security systems. However, due to the complexity of leg movement and the difference of external sampling conditions, gait recognition still faces many problems to be addressed. In this paper, an improved convolutional neural network (CNN) based on Gabor filter is therefore proposed to achieve gait recognition. Firstly, a gait feature extraction layer based on Gabor filter is inserted into the traditional CNNs, which is used to extract gait features from gait silhouette images. Then, in the process of gait classification, using the output of CNN as input, we utilize metric learning techniques to calculate distance between two gaits and achieve gait classification by k-nearest neighbors classifiers. Finally, several experiments are conducted on two open-accessed gait datasets and demonstrate that our method reaches state-of-the-art performances in terms of correct recognition rate on the OULP and CASIA-B datasets.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.271-278
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of Pilates Reformer training on gait improvement of subjects with asymmetric pelvic rotation. The seven subjects with greater pelvic rotation in right swing were assessed twice, 4 weeks apart, during which there was submitted to a Pilates Reformer training (three 40 min session per week). The kinematic data consisted of pelvic rotation and flexion angle of hip and knee joint was measured during gait. In comparison between both leg swings, max, min and range values of pelvic rotation was not significantly difference. After training, range of pelvic rotation in right swing was significantly decreased, but in left swing was not. In comparison between both leg swings, the values of max of hip and knee joint angle was significantly difference. After training, max values of angle of knee joint in right swing was significantly increased, but in left swing was not. The result of this study revealed that Pilates Reformer training was effective in improving gait to symmetric pelvic rotation.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.205-209
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• 2016

Objective: Children with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy show weakness especially in the lower-extremity rather than upper-extremity muscles and display characteristics such as asymmetric alignment, deficits in postural control or balance ability, and slow walking speed. Various therapeutic interventions are applied to children with cerebral palsy, of which taping is widely used in the field of rehabilitation, however, there are few studies of the effects of kinesio taping on gait patterns of children with cerebral palsy. The present study investigated the effects of kinesio taping on gait parameters of children with cerebral palsy. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Four children with spastic diplegia participated in this study. The participants' gait parameters while walking 10 m with and without kinesio taping (tibialis anterior, quadriceps femoris, and gluteus maximus) were recorded. Gait parameters including gait velocity, cadence, step length, stride length, single support time, and double support time were evaluated using the GAITRite. Mean values were obtained after having the subjects walk three times in each condition with a 5-minute rest period between each condition. The order of each condition was assigned randomly. Results: There were significant improvements in gait velocity, step length, stride length, and single support time of the right leg with kinesio taping condition compared to the without kinesio taping condition taping (p<0.05). However, there were no significant differences in cadence, single support time of the left leg, or double support time. Conclusions: The results show that kinesio taping may have a positive effect for improving gait parameters of children with spastic diplegia. However, its usefulness in the rehabilitation of children with cerebral palsy needs to be further investigated.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.323-329
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• 2020

This paper presents a control algorithm for a wearable walking aid robot for subjects with paraplegia after stroke. After a stroke, a slow, asymmetrical and unstable gait pattern is observed in a number of patients. In many cases, one leg can move in a relatively normal pattern, while the other leg is dysfunctional due to paralysis. We have adopted the so-called assist-as-needed control that encourages the patient to walk as much as possible while the robot assists as necessary to create the gait motion of the paralyzed leg. A virtual wall was implemented for the assist-as-needed control. A position based admittance controller was applied in the swing phase to follow human intentions for both the normal and paralyzed legs. A position controller was applied in the stance phase for both legs. A power controller was applied to obtain stable performance in that the output power of the system was delimited during the sample interval. In order to verify the proposed control algorithm, we performed a simulation with 1-DOF leg models. The preliminary results have shown that the control algorithm can follow human intentions during the swing phase by providing as much assistance as needed. In addition, the virtual wall effectively guided the paralyzed leg with stable force display.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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• v.55 no.7
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• pp.319-326
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• 2006

This paper proposes a novel fault-tolerant gait for Quadruped robots using energy stability margins. The previously developed fault-tolerant gaits for quadruped robots have a drawback of having marginal stability margin, which may lead to tumbling. In the process of tumbling, the potential energy of the center of gravity goes through a maximum. The larger the difference between the potential energy of the center of gravity of the initial position and that of this maximum, the less the robot tumbles. Hence this difference of potential energy, dubbed as Energy Stability Margin (ESM), can be regarded as the stability margin. In this paper, a novel fault-tolerant gait is presented which gives positive ESM to a quadruped robot suffering from a locked joint failure. Positive ESM is obtained by adjusting foot positions between leg swing sequences. The advantage of the proposed fault-tolerant gait is demonstrated in a case study where a quadruped robot with a failed leg walks on a even slope.

• Proceedings of the ESK Conference
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• 1994.04a
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• pp.136-144
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• 1994

In this study, the human gait trajectories during normal walking were synthesized using the inverse kinematics and optimization techniques. The synthesis based on a lower extremity model consisting of a torso and two legs. Each leg has three segments: thigh, shank, foot, and is assumed to move with six degrees-of-freedom. In order to synthesize trajectiories of this redundant system, the sum of angular displacements of articulating joints was selected as an objective function to be minimized. The proposed algorithm in this study is very useful for the analysis of human gait. For the gait analysis, the trajectories of four points in each leg should be measured. However, by using the algorithm, measuring the trajectories of two points is sufficient, and thus the experimental set-up can be simplified. The predicted joint trajectories showed a good agreement with those obtained from the experiment. The statistical analysis and graphic simula- tions are also presented.