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Construction and evaluation of a model for wheelchair propulsion in an individual with tetraplegia

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Abstract

Upper limb overuse injuries are common in manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injury. Patient-specific in silico models enhance experimental biomechanical analyses by estimating in vivo shoulder muscle and joint contact forces. Current models exclude deep shoulder muscles that have important roles in wheelchair propulsion. Freely accessible patient-specific models have not been generated for persons with tetraplegia, who have a greater risk for shoulder pain and injury. The objectives of this work were to (i) construct a freely accessible, in silico, musculoskeletal model capable of generating patient-specific dynamic simulations of wheelchair propulsion and (ii) establish proof-of-concept with data obtained from an individual with tetraplegia. Constructed with OpenSim, the model features muscles excluded in existing models. Shoulder muscle forces and activations were estimated via inverse dynamics. Mean absolute error of estimated muscle activations and fine-wire electromyography (EMG) recordings was computed. Mean muscle activation for five consecutive stroke cycles demonstrated good correlation (0.15–0.17) with fine-wire EMG. These findings, comparable to other studies, suggest that the model is capable of estimating shoulder muscle forces during wheelchair propulsion. The additional muscles may provide a greater understanding of shoulder muscle contribution to wheelchair propulsion. The model may ultimately serve as a powerful clinical tool.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Mr. Andrew Kwarciak and Dr. Mathew Yarossi for collecting and processing the experimental wheelchair propulsion and EMG data that were used in the simulations.

Funding

This study was funded by NJCSCR Grant No. 06-3054-SCR-E-0 and NSF/CUNY Grant No. 0450360.

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Author notes

  1. Brooke Odle

    Present address: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH, 44106, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 323 Martin Luther King Blvd, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA

    Brooke Odle

  2. Kessler Foundation, 1199 Pleasant Valley Way, West Orange, NJ, 07052, USA

    Brooke Odle, Gail Forrest & Trevor Dyson-Hudson

  3. Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering, University of Tennessee, 1512 Middle Drive, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Jeffrey Reinbolt

  4. Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, 185 South Orange Avenue, Newark, NJ, 07101, USA

    Gail Forrest & Trevor Dyson-Hudson

Authors
  1. Brooke Odle
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  2. Jeffrey Reinbolt
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  3. Gail Forrest
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  4. Trevor Dyson-Hudson
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Brooke Odle.

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Odle, B., Reinbolt, J., Forrest, G. et al. Construction and evaluation of a model for wheelchair propulsion in an individual with tetraplegia. Med Biol Eng Comput 57, 519–532 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-018-1895-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-018-1895-z

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