Cybernic treatment involves the generation of an interactive bio-feedback loop between an individual’s nervous system and the worn cyborg Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL); this treatment has been applied for several intractable neuromuscular disorders. Thus, it is of interest to determine its potential for parkinsonian patients. This study confirmed the feasibility of using a HAL trunk unit to improve parkinsonian gait disturbance. HAL establishes functional and physical synchronization with the wearer by providing lateral cyclic forces to the chest in the form of somatosensory and motor cues.
To confirm the feasibility of its use for improving parkinsonian gait disturbances, we conducted experiments with three Parkinson’s disease patients and two patients with progressive supranuclear palsy. During the experiments, the immediate effect of the intervention was assessed; all participants exhibited improvements in gait disturbance while wearing the HAL unit, and this improvement effect persisted without the HAL unit in two participants. Afterward, based on the assessment, we conducted a continuous intervention for one participant. In this intervention, the number of steps in the final experiment was significantly decreased compared with the initial state. These findings suggest that the proposed method is an option for treating parkinsonian patients to generate somatosensory and motor cues.
keyword: Parkinson’s disease, Parkinsonism, Wearable robot, Freezing of Gait, Gait assist.
Kaosu Ikeda, Akira Uehara, Hiroaki Kawamoto, and Yoshiyuki Sanakai, “Study on Gait Stabilization Method Using Wearable Cyborg HAL Trunk-Unit for Parkinson’s Disease and Parkinsonism with Freezing of Gait,” 2023 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC) , 2023, pp. 3228-3233.
Akira Uehara, Hiroaki Kawamoto, Hisamasa Imai, Makoto Shirai, Masatomi, Sone, Sachiko Noda, Shigeto Sato, Nobutaka Hattori, Yoshiyuki Sankai, “Gait improvement with wearable cyborg HAL trunk unit for parkinsonian patients: five case reports,” Scientific Reports 13, 6962 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-33847-z
Akira Uehara, Hiroaki Kawamoto, Yoshiyuki Sankai, “Proposal of Period Modulation Control of Wearable Cyborg HAL Trunk-unit for Parkinson’s disease/Parkinsonism utilizing Motor Intention and Dynamics”, Proceedings of the International Symposium on System Integration (SII2023), pp.818-823, 2023.
Akira Uehara 