The Effectiveness of Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) in On-Off Mode for Enhancing the Cycling Performance of Team Phoenix at 2016 Cybathlon


Submitted: 13 October 2017
Accepted: 1 December 2017
Published: 6 December 2017
Abstract Views: 1850
PDF: 634
HTML: 205
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Authors

  • Kenry W.C. Leung Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
  • Raymond K.Y. Tong Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
  • Xiaojun Wang Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
  • Ginny T.Y. Lee Industrial Centre, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.
  • Peter M.K. Pang Industrial Centre, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.
  • H.W. Wai Industrial Centre, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.
  • H.C. Leung Industrial Centre, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.
In this study we designed a Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) trike for a female subject with spinal cord injury to exercise her lower limbs and improve her lower limb muscle condition for attending the 2016 Cybathlon FES bike competition. Our FES pilot was the only female participant, in the FES cycling competition and she rode for Team Phoenix from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Due to the weakness of muscles in the lower limb of the subject, and due to scoliosis over her thoracolumbar aéra, the mechanical structure of the trike had to be tailor-made to ensure she sat on the bike in a safe and secure position. A six-phase angle-driven stimulation pattern was developed to stimulate quadriceps and hamstrings without gluteus muscles for contraction through four surface electrodes, thereby creating a cycling movement. To improve the cycling endurance and reduce the muscle fatigue, an on-off mode was developed for controlling the stimulation time that allowed the subject to cycle for 20s, then pause while the trike advanced without stimulation for 5s, followed by a subsequent 20 sec stimulation, to continue cycling. The pilot participated in the training procedure including training exercise at home, trike fitting in the trike by modifying the mechanical structure, and conducting the cycling exercise for six months. We observed significant improvements in the pilot’s lower limb condition. The on-off mode enabled our pilot to extend her cycling endurance effectively, from 1 min to 2.5 mins and the distance from 62m to 100m. Over the eight minutes time limit, our team successfully finished 100 m in the Cybathlon FES.

Leung, K. W., Tong, R. K., Wang, X., Lee, G. T., Pang, P. M., Wai, H., & Leung, H. (2017). The Effectiveness of Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) in On-Off Mode for Enhancing the Cycling Performance of Team Phoenix at 2016 Cybathlon. European Journal of Translational Myology, 27(4). https://doi.org/10.4081/ejtm.2017.7132

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Citations


Similar Articles

1 2 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.