Development and clinical application of trunk exercise assisting system for brain damaged patients

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Rehabilitation of trunkal motor dysfunction is very important for standing and walking of brain damaged patients. We developed a new "Computerized-Trunk Exercise Assisting System" with which we are repeatedly able to examine or to exercise the trunkal muscle strength and the sitting balance.The examined subject sat on a chair which was equipped with a gravimeter connected to a computer system to track automatically the movements of Center of pressure (COP). The seat was lifted up until the foot was free from the floor. COP was presented on a display in front of the subject. In the task, the subject was asked to lean his body so that his COP arrived the six indicated targets accurately from a home position as fast as possible. This system, in other words, is the examination of the trunkal muscle control function through visual and deep sensorial feedback control. The data of the COP movements were stored and analyzed with respect to range of COP movement, tracking speed and error in each direction.The evaluation was performed in 5 patients with CVD at Kirishima rehabilitation center, Kagoshima University hospital after taking the informed consent of them. The obtained results were shown below.1. This system provides quantitative indices of trunkal muscle balance and is useful for the evaluation of the rehabilitation effects.2. The device can also be used for the exercise of the visually guided trunkal muscle balance and strength.3. The maximal range of lateral COP movement was larger in nonhemiplegic side than that in hemiplegic side.4. After training with system for a week, the range of COP movement tended to be larger and the tracking error was significantly reduced in most of the patients.