Effective factors on speed and hand pain during the Paraplegic Gait

Though there are many physiological and psychological advantages to standing and walking for spinal cord injury patients (SCI) with the mechanical orthoses, hand pain due to the high reaction force of the crutches and low speed ambulation in contrast with the manual wheelchair are the most limitation of the orthotic gait currency for paraplegics. So according to an experimental observation, data analysis and kinematics modeling of an orthotic gait of paraplegic, we developed a 3D, six DOF, robotics model to find the effective factors on step length (speed of ambulation) and the net effects of the hands and crutches (hand pain) during a representative swing phase through the kinematics and Dynamic analysis and the response surface methodology (RSM). According to some simplifier assumptions, the rotation of the model around the vertical axis recognized as the effective factors in the step length also lateral tilting and trunk angles (in the sagittal and frontal plan) as the effective factors to the net effects of hands and crutches.

Keywords:

SCI patient , Mechanical orthoses , Modeling , RSM