Kinematics and muscle activity of individuals with incomplete spinal cord injury during treadmill stepping with and with
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BioMed Central
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Kinematics and muscle activity of individuals with incomplete spinal cord injury during treadmill stepping with and without manual assistance Antoinette Domingo*1, Gregory S Sawicki1,2 and Daniel P Ferris1,3,4 Address: 1Division of Kinesiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, 2Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, 3Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA and 4Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Email: Antoinette Domingo* - [email protected]; Gregory S Sawicki - [email protected]; Daniel P Ferris - [email protected] * Corresponding author
Published: 21 August 2007 Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation 2007, 4:32
doi:10.1186/1743-0003-4-32
Received: 27 September 2006 Accepted: 21 August 2007
This article is available from: http://www.jneuroengrehab.com/content/4/1/32 © 2007 Domingo et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract Background: Treadmill training with bodyweight support and manual assistance improves walking ability of patients with neurological injury. The purpose of this study was to determine how manual assistance changes muscle activation and kinematic patterns during treadmill training in individuals with incomplete spinal cord injury. Methods: We tested six volunteers with incomplete spinal cord injury and six volunteers with intact nervous systems. Subjects with spinal cord injury walked on a treadmill at six speeds (0.18–1.07 m/s) with body weight support with and without manual assistance. Healthy subjects walked at the same speeds only with body weight support. We measured electromyographic (EMG) and kinematics in the lower extremities and calculated EMG root mean square (RMS) amplitudes and joint excursions. We performed cross-correlation analyses to compare EMG and kinematic profiles. Results: Normalized muscle activation amplitudes and profiles in subjects with spinal cord injury were similar for stepping with and without manual assistance (ANOVA, p > 0.05). Muscle activation amplitudes increased with increasing speed (ANOVA, p < 0.05). When comparing spinal cord injury subject EMG data to control subject EMG data, neither the condition with manual assistance nor the condition without manual assistance showed a greater similarity to the control subject data, except for vastus lateralis. The shape and timing of EMG patterns in subjects with spinal cord injury became less similar to controls at faster speeds, especially when walking without manual assistance (ANOVA, p < 0.05). There were no consistent changes in kinematic profiles across spinal cord injury subjects when they were given manual assistance. Knee joint excur
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