bachelorThesis
Diseño de un estudio experimental para rehabilitación de rodilla con exoesqueleto activo
Autor
Baquero Duarte, Karen Catalina
Institución
Resumen
Humanity has developed over time different forms of rehabilitation according to the needs of each person and according to which part of the human body was affected. The Gibiome research group and the rehabilitation engineering hotbed of the Colombian School of Engineering Julio Garavito are developing different investigations around an active lower limb exoskeleton, which is designed to be part of an adjustable robotics platform for gait rehabilitation. and assistance (AGoRA). The exoskeleton was designed as a form of rehabilitation for patients who have suffered a cerebrovascular accident (CVA). It has 6 degrees of freedom and is mostly made of duralumin, it also has sensors and actuators. Three studies are currently underway to observe the efficacy of the exoskeleton in physical therapy. For this, several therapies are being developed for patients who have suffered a stroke. One of them is focused on knee rehabilitation with an active exoskeleton while the patient is in a stationary state, which consists of flexion and extension exercises of the knee with the assistance of the exoskeleton while the patient is sitting. Another of these therapies is also focused on knee rehabilitation, but in progress, where the patient will use the exoskeleton in different ways (transparency and assistance), while walking in an endless band, this is also performed in healthy patients in order Note that the exoskeleton does not affect normal gait patterns. The previous study is also carried out, with healthy people. These studies have indicators such as: muscle activation (EMG) related to the activities carried out in the therapy, gait patterns, level of spasticity according to the Ashworth scale (in the event that they are pathological participants). In this work, each protocol was proposed based on the state of the art of previous studies which performed lower limb exoskeleton therapies and had indicators to demonstrate the influence of the exoskeleton. In each of these studies, satisfaction surveys were carried out, since the user's opinion is quite important and definitive to identify the advantages and disadvantages of each study, and to obtain a feedback where the results of the surveys will be taken into account to focus on the points to improve. It is also expected that as the therapy sessions progress, improvements in the patient will be seen as reflected in the results of gait patterns and that spasticity levels will be reduced. Within the framework of this project, only the walking protocol was tested in healthy subjects, six male volunteers were carried out, in which case they had indicators such as muscle activity (EMG), spatial-temporal parameters such as cadence, walking speed and stride length, also kinematic parameters, which were obtained thanks to the exoskeleton and satisfaction surveys that the volunteers answered after using the exoskeleton. Regarding the EMG, it was observed that in transparency mode there is greater amplitude, that is to say, where greater muscular activity exists even greater than in assistance mode, and the space-time parameters decreased with respect to normal gait, all this can be given since the relationship Gearbox ratio is 1600: 1, which means that it is more difficult to move the exoskeleton when not in assistance, this can be compensated by the control values of each motor. It was also determined that the exoskeleton in assistance mode improves some gait parameters compared to transparency mode, but there are no improvements compared to normal gait, which indicates that if there is a level of assistance, but it is not sufficient for a healthy person.