Multigrasp Myoelectric Control of a Hand Prosthesis, and Assessment of Efficacy

描述(申请人提供)：在失去肢体后，上肢截肢者通常有两种假体类型可供选择，以进行手体动力或肌电类型的装置的功能性置换--这两种装置对手功能的恢复都非常有限。机器人技术的最新进步使多抓握手假肢成为可能，这种假手有望极大地增强缺失的手的功能替换。然而，如果没有一个用户界面，使截肢者能够快速、容易和有效地评估手的多重抓取能力，这样的假肢将不会有用。研究人员已经开发了一种用于多抓握假体的用户界面(基于初步工作)，它提供了对多个手部姿势的直观、实时、直接的控制。所提出的控制结构利用手中传感器的位置和力信息来增强来自用户的肌电信息，并利用这些组合信息来提供一定程度的半自主协调，从而极大地简化了用户对手假体的控制和与手假体的交互。因此，这项拟议工作的目标是在五名单侧横径截肢患者的多抓握手假肢上实施这种多抓握肌电控制接口，并相对于他们最先进的单抓握肌电假手评估多抓握手在执行手动任务时的效率。功效研究的结果可能验证或质疑多抓握手假体相对于单抓握手假体的功能优势。 与公共卫生有关：截至2005年，美国约有41,000人接受上肢严重截肢(即不包括失去手指)。目前的手假体为这些截肢者提供了非常有限的手功能恢复。这项研究提出了一种假手和接口控制器，可以显著改善手功能的恢复，从而可以显著提高上肢截肢者的生活质量。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): After suffering limb loss, upper extremity amputees generally have two options in prosthesis types for functional replacement of the hand - body powered or myoelectric type devices - both of which offer very limited restoration of hand function. Recent advances in robotics technology have enabled multigrasp hand prostheses which hold the promise of greatly enhancing functional replacement of the missing hand. Such prostheses, however, will not be useful without a user interface that enables the amputee to quickly, easily, and effectively assess the multigrasp capability of the hand. The investigators have developed a user interface for a multi- grasp prosthesis that (based on preliminary work) provides intuitive, real-time, direct control of multiple hand postures. The proposed control structure augments EMG information from the user with position and force in- formation from sensors in the hand, and leverages this combined information to provide a degree of semi- autonomous coordination, which in turn greatly simplifies the user's control of and interaction with the hand prosthesis. As such, the objective of the proposed work is to implement this multigrasp myoelectric control interface on a multigrasp hand prosthesis on five unilateral transradial amputee subjects, and assess the efficacy of the multigrasp hand when performing manual tasks, relative to their state-of-the-art single-grasp myoelectric prosthetic hands. The outcome of the efficacy study could either validate, or bring into question, the functional merit of multigrasp hand prostheses relative to the single-grasp state-of-the-art. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: As of 2005, there were approximately 41,000 persons living in the United States with major (i.e., excluding loss of fingers) upper limb amputations. Current hand prostheses offer these amputees very limited restoration of hand function. This study proposes a prosthetic hand and interface controller that could provide considerably improved restoration of hand function, and thus could offer considerably improved quality of life for upper extremity amputees.