PREPARATORY ADJUSTMENTS FOR IMPROVED STANDING WITH FNS

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DESCRIPTION: (adapted from Investigator's abstract) The long term goals of this research is to develop practical Functional Neuromuscular Stimulation (FNS) systems for restoring motor function in neurologically-impaired individuals. FNS has been used to restore the ability to stand, step and maneuver in persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) and other neurological disorders that impair lower extremity function. Research results have been encouraging, but lower extremity FNS systems have not yet proven to be clinically viable primarily due to the limited degree of function that has been restored. The investigators will develop and evaluate a system that provides the FNS system user the ability to make two types of preparatory adjustments prior to performing a task: the user will first place their feet in a suitable location and then the user will adjust their posture (i.e. adjust the location of the pelvis with respect to the feet). The role of proper foot placement in standing has not been well characterized, nor has it been exploited in FNS control system design. The majority of the effort will be directed towards investigating the role of foot placement and developing techniques to achieve suitable foot placement in FNS stance. To incorporate the facility for adjusting posture once the feet are in place, the investigators will utilize and build upon the results of their on-going efforts in which they are implementing techniques for on-line postural adjustments. At the completion of this project, they plan to have successfully developed and implemented a novel control system for making preparatory adjustments in FNS standing and to have demonstrated the functional benefits provided by this system. Towards this end, they propose a coordinated effort that will utilize computer simulations with detailed biomechanical models, experiments on able-bodied individuals, and several sets of experiments on spinal cord injured subjects who are standing using FNS systems.