| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 醫學工程研究所 === 99 === Falling is a major cause of severe injury and disbability in the elders, and it's associated with poor balance and insufficient lower limb muscle strength. Accordingly, it had become the critical topic of prevented medicine and home-care. The purpose of this study was to investigate the biomechanical effects of applying portable FES on ankle plantar flexor of elder adults in walking and obstacle crossing.
15 healthy elderly adults and 15 elderly fallers were recruited in this study. The intervention of FES was applied to the bilateral medial gastrocnmeius during the mid-stance to toe-off phase by footswitch controlled. Furthermore, using clinical assessment and laboratory-based evaluation to measure the variables related to dynamic balance control and force production during walking and obstacle crossing.
After the ES intervention, maximal medial-lateral (M/L) displacement of COM and COP decreased significantly for fallers in walking and obstacle crossing. Although the average COM velocity didn’t have significantly change, the application of ES resulted in 35.9% reduction in peak M/L COM velocity and 4.2% reduction in peak anterior-posterior (A/P) COM velocity for fallers during obstacle crossing. Also, fallers exhibited decrease COM-COP inclination angle in several key points of M/L and A/P directions after ES intervention. Besides, we observed that fallers under ES supported increase 2.9% ~ 4.5% peak vertical ground reaction force (peak vGRF) and 24.3 ~ 28.7 mm foot clearance during obstacle crossing.
These results have implications for novel approaches for improving dynamic balance control during locomotion and improve their forward propulsion in the push off phase for elderly fallers.
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