Development of functional stimulation using an adaptive electrode
Development of functional stimulation using an adaptive electrode
Recent work at many centres, including Southampton University, has shown that electrical stimulation can be used to considerable advantage to produce functional movement in plegic. patients. The author has taken this starting point and considered methods by which functional stimulation with surface electrodes, may, be made more reliable and simpler for patients to use.The thesis first considers how both the normal and disordered biological systems function and discusses the medical starting point for the design of suitable stimulation systems. The experience , of other workers is discussed as highlights the principal problems encountered with functional stimulation. A common failing in clinical use is a lack of repeatability both in time and from subject to subject. The root cause of this lack is a failure both to locate and maintain the stimulus electrode over the motor point. The bulk of the work described in this thesis is directed to improving this aspect of functional stimulation. An automatic test system is described. It was designed to obtain response surfaces that would both define and illustrate the problem of rotor point location. Contour maps of finger force verses stimulus position, obtained using the test system, are presented and used to design subsequent more complex stimulator systems.The thesis describes an adaptive electrode system that maintains its active region over the motor point in spite of both short term variation caused by muscle/joint movements and long term drift caused by mechanical creep at the electrode/skin interface. The initial positioning of the active region over the motor point is achieved by a novel hill climbing routine that takes advantage, of the discrete nature of the electrode matrix. Results obtained with the adaptive electrode are presented and show that a self adjusting electrode system is possible which can converge on the motor point in a usefully short time. Finally, the relevance of the work is discussed from a number of viewpoints and suggestions made for ongoing development topics.
University of Southampton
1978
Beresford, Roger Alan
(1978)
Development of functional stimulation using an adaptive electrode.
University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.
Record type:
Thesis
(Doctoral)
Abstract
Recent work at many centres, including Southampton University, has shown that electrical stimulation can be used to considerable advantage to produce functional movement in plegic. patients. The author has taken this starting point and considered methods by which functional stimulation with surface electrodes, may, be made more reliable and simpler for patients to use.The thesis first considers how both the normal and disordered biological systems function and discusses the medical starting point for the design of suitable stimulation systems. The experience , of other workers is discussed as highlights the principal problems encountered with functional stimulation. A common failing in clinical use is a lack of repeatability both in time and from subject to subject. The root cause of this lack is a failure both to locate and maintain the stimulus electrode over the motor point. The bulk of the work described in this thesis is directed to improving this aspect of functional stimulation. An automatic test system is described. It was designed to obtain response surfaces that would both define and illustrate the problem of rotor point location. Contour maps of finger force verses stimulus position, obtained using the test system, are presented and used to design subsequent more complex stimulator systems.The thesis describes an adaptive electrode system that maintains its active region over the motor point in spite of both short term variation caused by muscle/joint movements and long term drift caused by mechanical creep at the electrode/skin interface. The initial positioning of the active region over the motor point is achieved by a novel hill climbing routine that takes advantage, of the discrete nature of the electrode matrix. Results obtained with the adaptive electrode are presented and show that a self adjusting electrode system is possible which can converge on the motor point in a usefully short time. Finally, the relevance of the work is discussed from a number of viewpoints and suggestions made for ongoing development topics.
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Published date: 1978
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Local EPrints ID: 459992
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/459992
PURE UUID: d5eca1f3-c71f-4a06-9464-b53585bacf19
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Date deposited: 04 Jul 2022 17:33
Last modified: 04 Jul 2022 17:33
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Author:
Roger Alan Beresford
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