A project led by researchers at Birmingham University, United Kingdom, aims to improve quality of life for people with amputations through development of a novel functional electrical stimulation (FES) device.
The researchers hope their new assistive technology has potential benefits that would include improved function, pain management, and mitigated risk of complications. The project will be delivered in partnership with Rice University and involves collaboration with physiotherapists, amputee consultants, and FES consultants.
“Annually, there are more than one million amputations worldwide as a result of vascular diseases, trauma and cancer,” said principal investigator Ziyun Ding, PhD, from Birmingham‘s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “With the increasing rate of diabetes and the population ageing, the amputee population is expected to double by 2050. A major limb amputation inevitably impairs mobility. In addition, amputees may suffer from chronic pain and the loss of muscle mass, which altogether in turn will [further diminish] their mobility.”
Ding described the team’s approach to using FES—a device to deliver small amounts of electrical current to muscles, providing additional amounts of muscle excitations for fulfilling functional tasks—as ground-breaking.
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“Our bodies have a great deal of redundancy: there are many ways to accomplish a task we ask our muscles to do,” she said. “That is a good thing: If one or several muscles are amputated, others can pick up the slack by working harder than they were before with an amputation.
“With the improved understanding of our bodies, especially the improved understanding of the relationship between the amounts we excite our muscles and the resulting motions of our bodies, we believe that we could help amputees regain their mobility. Simply speaking, if amputees could walk faster and longer with the assistance of prosthesis as well as the functional electrical stimulation, this will be able to reduce other effects, typically pain and cardiovascular disease.”
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Ding added that the team’s approach to modelling the human musculoskeletal system involves model preparation for measuring movement and imaging data from patients; model construction to calibrate and estimate model parameters and incorporate clinical treatment plans in the model; and model utilization to collect post-treatment movement and imaging data from patients and validate the model.
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“Few labs throughout the world have reached the point of being able to apply such an approach to solve a mobility-related clinical problem,” she said. “The advances made through the research project could quickly improve the amputee healthcare provision in approximately three years’ time.”
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Editor’s note: This story was adapted by materials provided by University of Birmingham.
