Electromyography Triggered Training System for Wrist Rehabilitation

Abstract

This study is about the development of the wrist rehabilitation system for the patient who has limited capability of movement after stroke. Electromyography triggered training system (ETTS) can play the role between complete passive training and patient activating training system. Surface EMG was measured on pronator teres muscle and biceps brachii muscle for wrist pronation and supination. Our system detects whether the subject makes muscular effort for pronation or supination or nothing in every 50 ms. When the effort level exceeds the preset percentage of maximal voluntary contraction, the motor rotates according to the direction of the intention of the subject. EMG triggers the motor rotation for the wrist rehabilitation training until the preset angle. To evaluate its performance, the maximum voluntary contraction level was measured for 4 subjects at first. With the audiovisual instruction to rotate the wrist (pronation or supination) the subjects made effort to follow the instruction. After calculating root mean square (RMS) for 50 ms, the controller determines whether there was muscular effort to rotate while holding the motor. When there was an effort to rotate, the controller rotates the motor 0.8 degree. By comparing the RMS values from two channels of EMG, the controller determines the rotational direction. The onset delay is 0.76 ± 0.24 s and offset delay is 0.65 ± 0.22 s for pronation. For supination the onset delay is 1.24 ± 0.41 s and offset delay is 0.77 ± 0.22 s. The system responded fast enough to be used for rehabilitation training. The controller perceived the direction of rotation 100% correctly for the pronation and 97.5% correctly for supination. ETTS was developed and the fundamental functions were validated for normal subjects. The clinical validation should be done with patients for real world application. With ETTS, the subjects can train voluntarily over the limitation of the range of motion which increases the effectiveness of the rehabilitation training.