Functional Electrical Stimulation Alters the Postural Component of Locomotor Activity in Healthy Humans

Abstract

Knowledge of the effects of Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) of different intensity on postural stability during walking in healthy subjects is necessary before these relationships in patients with postural disorders can be assessed and understood. We examined healthy subjects in Control group walking on a treadmill for 40 min and in FES group—provided with 30 min of stimulation, which intensity increased every 10 min. The main difference between Control and FES group was the progressive increase of trunk oscillations in sagittal, frontal, and horizontal planes and an increase of relative stance duration in parallel with FES intensity increase. Both Control and FES groups exhibited shank elevation angle increase as an after-effect. It is concluded, that high intensity FES significantly changes the postural component of locomotor activity, but the fatigue signs afterwards were not FES specific.

Effects of Functional Electrical Stimulation on Gait Characteristics in Healthy Individuals: A Systematic Review

“…Most studies [13,14,16,[21][22][23][24][25][27][28][29] obtained a PEDro score of 6 or higher (n = 10), i.e., a good methodological quality (Table 2). The remaining five studies [15,22,24,26,31] scored 5, corresponding to a moderate methodological quality.…”

“…The most frequently targeted muscle was the gastrocnemius [13,14,16,22,23,25,29,30], followed by the biceps femoris [13,15,16,23,25,26,30], tibialis anterior [13,16,23,25,27,30], rectus femoris [13,16,21,25,30], and soleus [13,14,22]. Additionally, isolated studies investigated the effects of FES on the gluteus medius [24], peroneus longus [31], and abductor hallucis [28].…”

“…Regarding the type of current used, most of the experiments used a biphasic current [13,14,16,24,29,31]. Among them, three delivered a rectangular waveform stimulation [16,23,27] and two used an asymmetric waveform current [14,24].…”

“…Notably, one of the fourteen studies mentioned implemented adjustments to the pulse widths based on participant characteristics [14,29]. Moreover, two additional studies employed variable pulse widths ranging from 0 to 250 µs [23] and from 250 to 500 µs [30].…”

Effects of Functional Electrical Stimulation on Gait Characteristics in Healthy Individuals: A Systematic Review

“…Outcomes according to the stimulated muscles with their stimulation timing. Note that since up to four muscles can be stimulated during the gait cycle[16,23,25,30], the stimulation timing and combined e ects are repeated for all stimulated muscles with the same color code. When only one muscle was stimulated, the timing and e ects are shown in black.Muscles abbreviations-GLM: Gluteus Medius; RF: Rectus Femoris; BF: Biceps Femoris; BFLH: Biceps Femoris Long Head; LG: Lateral Gastrocnemius; MG: Medial Gastrocnemius; SOL: Soleus; TA: Tibialis anterior; PIFM: Plantar Intrinsic Foot Muscle; PL: Peroneus Longus; Outcome abbreviations-ABD: Abduction (frontal plane); EV: Eversion (transversal plane); PF: Plantarflexion (sagi al plane); DF: Dorsiflexion (sagi al plane); ROM: Range of motion (sagi al plane); MKF: Medial knee force; CF: Compressive force; AP: Anteroposterior component; LG: Longitudinal component; ML: Mediolateral component; A: Anterior; P: Posterior; ITRT: Internal Tibial Rotation Torque; ATFSF: Anterior Tibiofemoral Shear Force; GS: Gait speed; SD: Stance duration; SL: Step length; F: Frequency.…”