Control of a hybrid upper-limb orthosis device based on a data-driven artificial neural network classifier of electromyography signals

The efficacy of hybrid neuroprostheses in the rehabilitation of upper limb impairment after stroke, a narrative and systematic review with a meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Paresis of the upper limb (UL) is the most frequent impairment after a stroke. Hybrid neuroprostheses, i.e., the combination of robots and electrical stimulation, have emerged as an option to treat these impairments.

METHODS

To give an overview of existing devices, their features, and how they are linked to clinical metrics, four different databases were systematically searched for studies on hybrid neuroprostheses for UL rehabilitation after stroke. The evidence on the efficacy of hybrid therapies was synthesized.

RESULTS

Seventy-three studies were identified, introducing 32 hybrid systems. Among the most recent devices (n = 20), most actively reinforce movement (3 passively) and are typical exoskeletons (3 end-effectors). If classified according to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, systems for proximal support are expected to affect body structures and functions, while the activity and participation level are targeted when applying Functional Electrical Stimulation distally plus the robotic component proximally. The meta-analysis reveals a significant positive effect on UL functions (p < 0.001), evident in a 7.8-point Mdiff between groups in the Fugl-Meyer assessment. This positive effect remains at the 3-month follow-up (Mdiff  = 8.4, p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

Hybrid neuroprostheses have a positive effect on UL recovery after stroke, with effects persisting at least three months after the intervention. Non-significant studies were those with the shortest intervention periods and the oldest patients. Improvements in UL functions are not only present in the subacute phase after stroke but also in long-term chronic stages. In addition to further technical development, more RCTs are needed to make assumptions about the determinants of successful therapy.

Advancing task recognition towards artificial limbs control with ReliefF-based deep neural network extreme learning

In the rapidly advancing field of biomedical engineering, effective real-time control of artificial limbs is a pressing research concern. Addressing this, the current study introduces a pioneering method for augmenting task recognition in prosthetic control systems, combining a ReliefF-based Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) approach. This paper has leveraged the MILimbEEG dataset, a comprehensive rich source collection of EEG signals, to calculate statistical features of Arithmetic Mean (AM), Standard Deviation (SD), and Skewness (S) across various motor activities. Supreme Feature Selection (SFS), of the adopted time-domain features, was performed using the ReliefF algorithm. The highest scored DNN-ReliefF developed model demonstrated remarkable performance, achieving accuracy, precision, and recall rates of 97.4 %, 97.3 %, and 97.4 %, respectively. In contrast, a traditional DNN model yielded accuracy, precision, and recall rates of 50.8 %, 51.1 %, and 50.8 %, highlighting the significant improvements made possible by incorporating SFS. This stark contrast underscores the transformative potential of incorporating ReliefF, situating the DNN-ReliefF model as a robust platform for forthcoming advancements in real-time prosthetic control systems.

An Adaptive Spatial Filtering Method for Multi-Channel EMG Artifact Removal During Functional Electrical Stimulation With Time-Variant Parameters

Removing the stimulation artifacts evoked by the functional electrical stimulation (FES) in electromyogram (EMG) signals is a challenge. Previous researches on stimulation artifact removal have focused on FES modulation with time-constant parameters, which has limitations when there are time-variant parameters. Therefore, considering the synchronism of muscle activation induced by FES and the asynchronism of muscle activation induced by proprioceptive nerves, we proposed a novel adaptive spatial filtering method called G-S-G. It entails fusing the Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization (G-S) and Grubbs criterion (G) algorithms to remove the FES-evoked stimulation artifacts in multi-channel EMG signals. To verify this method, we constructed a series of simulation data by fusing the FES signal with time-variant parameters and the voluntary EMG (vEMG) signal, and applied the G-S-G method to remove any FES artifacts from the simulation data. After that, we calculated the root mean square (RMS) value for both preprocessed simulation data and the vEMG data, and then compared them. The simulation results showed that the G-S-G method was robust and effective at removing FES artifacts in simulated EMG signals, and the correlation coefficient between the preprocessed EMG data and the recorded vEMG data yielded a good performance, up to 0.87. Furthermore, we applied the proposed method to the experimental EMG data with FES-evoked stimulation artifact, and also achieved good performance with both the time-constant and time-variant parameters. This study provides a new and accessible approach to resolving the problem of removing FES-evoked stimulation artifacts.

Scalable tensor factorization for recovering multiday missing intramuscular electromyography data

To design a prosthetic hand which can classify movements based on the electromyography (EMG) signals, complete and good quality signals are essential. However, due to different reasons such as disconnection of electrodes or muscles fatigue the recorded EMG data can be incomplete, which degrades the classification of test movements. In this paper, we first acquire multiday intramuscular EMG (iEMG) signals (which are invasive) with higher Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) compared to surface EMG (sEMG) signals; followed by application of matrix (non-negative matrix factorization – NMF) and tensor factorization methods (Canonical Polyadic Decomposition (CPD), Tucker decomposition (TD) & Canonical Polyadic-Weighted Optimization (CP-WOPT)) for recovering structured missing data i.e., chunks of missing samples in channels. Furthermore, we tested the scalability of NMF, CPD, TD and CP-WOPT by employing them on the large multiday (seven days) iEMG data where the size of missing data is increased from day 1 to day 7, and for each day a fixed percentage of missing data is introduced from 10% to worst case of 50%. Results show that CP-WOPT outperformed NMF, CPD and TD to recover large percentage of missing data in terms of Relative Mean Error (RME) even when 7 days of data is considered. CP-WOPT showed robustness even for the worse case even when 50% iEMG data is removed from day 1 to day 7 where it’s RME degraded slightly from 0.08 to 0.1.

fNIRS-Based Upper Limb Motion Intention Recognition Using an Artificial Neural Network for Transhumeral Amputees

Prosthetic arms are designed to assist amputated individuals in the performance of the activities of daily life. Brain machine interfaces are currently employed to enhance the accuracy as well as number of control commands for upper limb prostheses. However, the motion prediction for prosthetic arms and the rehabilitation of amputees suffering from transhumeral amputations is limited. In this paper, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)-based approach for the recognition of human intention for six upper limb motions is proposed. The data were extracted from the study of fifteen healthy subjects and three transhumeral amputees for elbow extension, elbow flexion, wrist pronation, wrist supination, hand open, and hand close. The fNIRS signals were acquired from the motor cortex region of the brain by the commercial NIRSport device. The acquired data samples were filtered using finite impulse response (FIR) filter. Furthermore, signal mean, signal peak and minimum values were computed as feature set. An artificial neural network (ANN) was applied to these data samples. The results show the likelihood of classifying the six arm actions with an accuracy of 78%. The attained results have not yet been reported in any identical study. These achieved fNIRS results for intention detection are promising and suggest that they can be applied for the real-time control of the transhumeral prosthesis.