Decreasing the Arm Participation in Complete Paraplegic FES-Assisted Sit to Stand

We have developed a method aiming at improving Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) – assisted sit to stand transfer in people with paraplegia. The approach is based on the coordination of upper and lower parts of the body with final objective to reduce arm participation during the rising motion. The proposed approach is based on the observation of trunk acceleration during rising phase and a detection algorithm, which triggers leg stimulation at a desired time instant. The objective of this study is to present preliminary experimental results obtained in one complete paraplegic subject showing that the delay between leg stimulation onset and maximum trunk acceleration event is related to the arm support applied during sit-to-stand motion.