Technologies

Movement of human limbs requires the coordination of multiple muscles. Such coordination is learned through extensive practice but can be disrupted by injuries or diseases such as traumatic brain injury, cerebral palsy, stroke or Parkinson’s disease. Loss of coordination makes common tasks like walking difficult. Thus, an important objective of physical therapy is the retraining of neural control of limb muscles.

One component of control not adequately addressed by current therapies is the relative activation of muscles crossing multiple joints. For the arms and legs, this relative activation is reflected in the direction of the force generated by the hands and feet. UW-Madison researchers have developed a system that specifically trains force direction to restore desired patterns of relative muscle activation in human limbs. The system comprises a training device that includes support for the user, limb engaging surfaces such as handles and/or pedals, and multi axis force sensors to measure the direction and magnitude of applied forces. In addition, a controller provides visual, audio, or kinematic feedback based on the direction of force applied to the handles/pedals. This system also has applications in the enhancement of pedaling efficiency and the strengthening of various targeted muscles.