Upper Limb Functional Electrical Stimulation Rehabilitation System with the Patient's Active Participation

Functional electrical stimulation (FES) is an effective rehabilitation method for patients with motor dysfunction. However, the existing FES rehabilitation methods lack patient active participation. To combine patients' active movement with passive muscle movements under functional electrical stimulation, we developed an intelligent upper limb rehabilitation training system in this paper. The system mainly consists of a multi-channel functional electrical stimulator, a closed-loop motion control strategy for upper limb joints, and an interactive rehabilitation game. Compared with previous work, the main contribution of this work exists in two points: first, the closed-loop motion control of the upper limb is capable of automatically adjusting the intensity of electrical stimulation according to the patient's active motion ability. Only when the patient is not able to produce the required movements, does the FES stimulate the muscles to assist the movement. Thus, patients can rehabilitate with the patient's active participation; Second, This game-based training method not only greatly improves the patient's motivation for rehabilitation, but also promotes the patient's spontaneous motor imagery, which effectively enhances the efficiency of rehabilitation, and helps the patient better adhere to the treatment and accelerates the rehabilitation process. The experiment results showed that the system could control the elbow and wrist to the expected angle with the functional electrical stimulation. The system could realize the rehabilitation training by combining active and passive movements, which opened up a new way to recover patients with motor dysfunction.