Journal of the Society of Biomechanisms

In this study, we proposed a new treatment method and developed a new treatment system for improving the active dorsiflexion motion of the ankle joint of the hemiplegic lower extremity. This system consists of an electrical stimulator, a voluntary EMG signal detector, ankle joint motion aids with a goniometer, and a visual feedback display. The system's performance was evaluated on five chronic hemiplegic patients through 12 treatment sessions over a period of three months. No active dorsiflexion had been observed in any of the patients since they had strokes. However, each patient's active range of motion increased obviously at the first treatment session. Furthermore, during the twelve treatment sessions, three of the five patients showed continuous increase in active range of motion. These results indicated that this treatment method was extremely effective and had excellent potential for improving the active dorsiflexion motion of the ankle joint of the hemiplegic lower extremity.

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Arterial Reflection Coefficient has been analyzed systematically to elucidate the influence of the distance from the entry zone of artery in combination with isolated effects of radius and elastic modulus of arterial wall with the help of transmission line theory. The femoral artery was selected as a target because its geometrical constancy enabled the problem solvable. The dynamical features of blood flow and wall motion have been described by two sets of differential equations. They were converted to transmission line equations by assuming linear cyclic solutions. The reflection coefficient was obtained by setting terminal boundary conditions and complex analysis utilizing the transmission coefficient. The reflection coefficient increased with distance from the entry zone. A rapid increase manifested at near the terminal while the change was gradual at the entrance zone. The reflection coefficient was small in magnitude at large radius while it marked a large value at large elastic modulus. Present data has been compared qualitatively with reported physical experimental data of pressure wave reflection in rubber tube under the physiological condition which were identical with ours. As long as the law of a quarter wave length operates, present theoretical analysis is valid quantitatively and qualitatively. Present results would be available for creating more physiological artificial vessel.

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