Transition of joint strategy and balance evaluation by stabilometer installing center of gravity feedback system

Abstract

A lot of rehabilitation robots have been developed and used in the practice of medicine. However, the effect of these devices are not quantified and the guidelines for the device settings are unclear. The purpose of this study is to quantify the improvement effect of a rehabilitation device. As a rehabilitation device, we focused on a stabilometer with COP feedback system for improving subject’s balance. The effect was quantified by a balance evaluation index based on the standard deviation of COM displacement and acceleration estimated from force plate measurement. As a result, balance evaluation of three subjects were improved after applying the stabilometer. To investigate the origin of the sway reducing effect, we assumed that the head acceleration is important because the balance improved subjects reduced the head acceleration. We assumed that the coordination of two joint strategy mode (the ankle strategy and the hip strategy) contributes to reduce the head acceleration. The correlation of two joint strategy mode in the experiment indicated that the assumption is valid. However, the reduction of the ankle strategy mode was more dominant for balance improvement by the stabilometer.