Abstract Cerebrovascular accidents like a stroke can affect the lower limb as well as upper extremity joints (i.e., shoulder, elbow, or wrist) and hinder the ability to produce necessary torque for activities of daily living. In such cases, muscles’ ability to generate forces reduces, thus affecting the joint’s torque production. Understanding how muscles generate forces is a key element to injury detection. Researchers have developed several computational methods to obtain muscle forces and joint torques. Electromyography (EMG) driven modeling is one of the approaches to estimate muscle forces and obtain joint torques from muscle activity measurements. Musculoskeletal models and EMG-driven models require necessary muscle-specific parameters for the calculation. The focus of this study is to investigate the EMG-driven approach along with an upper extremity musculoskeletal model to determine muscle forces of two major muscle groups, biceps brachii and triceps brachii, consisting of seven muscle-tendon units. Estimated muscle forces are used to determine the elbow joint torque. Experimental EMG signals and motion capture data are collected for a healthy subject. The musculoskeletal model is scaled to match the geometric parameters of the subject. Then, the approach calculates muscle forces and joint moment for two tasks: simple elbow flexion extension and triceps kickback. Individual muscle forces and net joint torques for both tasks are estimated. The study also has compared the effect of muscle-tendon parameters (optimal fiber length and tendon slack length) on the estimated results.
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Compensating for Soft-Tissue Artifact Using the Orientation of Distal Limb Segments During Electromagnetic Motion Capture of the Upper Limb
Abstract Most motion capture measurements suffer from soft-tissue artifacts (STA). Especially affected are rotations about the long axis of a limb segment, such as humeral internal-external rotation (HIER) and forearm pronation-supination (FPS). Unfortunately, most existing methods to compensate for STA were designed for optoelectronic motion capture systems. We present and evaluate an STA compensation method that (1) compensates for STA in HIER and/or FPS, (2) is developed specifically for electromagnetic motion capture systems, and (3) does not require additional calibration or data. To compensate for STA, calculation of HIER angles relies on forearm orientation, and calculation of FPS angles rely on hand orientation. To test this approach, we recorded whole-arm movement data from eight subjects and compared their joint angle trajectories calculated according to progressive levels of STA compensation. Compensated HIER and FPS angles were significantly larger than uncompensated angles. Although the effect of STA compensation on other joint angles (besides HIER and FPS) was usually modest, significant effects were seen in certain degrees-of-freedom under some conditions. Overall, the method functioned as intended during most of the range of motion of the upper limb, but it becomes unstable in extreme elbow extension and extreme wrist flexion–extension. Specifically, this method is not recommended for movements within 20 deg of full elbow extension, full wrist flexion, or full wrist extension. Since this method does not require additional calibration of data, it can be applied retroactively to data collected without the intent to compensate for STA.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1806056
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10376526
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Biomechanical Engineering
- Volume:
- 144
- Issue:
- 7
- ISSN:
- 0148-0731
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4053366
