Sharif Digital Repository

One of the most common diseases associated with musculo-skeletal ailment is low back pain which is epidemic among general public so that billions of dollars is spent annually to treat this disease. There are back pain prevention strategies include training on correct lifting, ergonomic tool design, and industrial automation amongst others. In recent years, assistive devices have also been used to prevent back pain. There are assistive devices that can be installed on the body and significantly have reduced forces required for Erector Spinae muscle and Lumbar moments. In this research, at first the anatomy of the spine and muscles and method of processing Electromyography (EMG) of muscles... 

Low back pain is one of the musculoskeletal diseases which is an important issue for general health of society in both quality of life and costs. Most of the clinical instructions employ exercise as a clinical treatment in order to cure chronic low back pain. General and core stability exercises are of common prevalence, however, there are disputes about the effectiveness of these exercises in the literature. The aim of this study is to answer the question whether stabilizer exercise can significantly alter the stability of vertebral column in comparison with general exercises. Hence, experiments have been designed and conducted. The participants have been divided to two group. Within six... 

Low back pains (LBP) are prevalent and costly. One of the important factors causing LBP is excessive axial compression and shear forces that are applied on the intervertebral discs during different activities. Due to lack of direct in vivo measurement methods for estimating these loads, musculoskeletal biomechanical models have been emerged as indispensable tools under various activities. Different biomechanical models have been suggested to estimate muscle forces and spinal loads base on optimization, EMG and hybrid (EMG assisted optimization, EMGAO) methods. Although there have been a number of studies on the differences between various optimization and EMG-based methods, there has been no... 

With technological advances in fabrication and control of prosthesis and assistive devices the importance of such systems has increased drastically. On the other hand the appropriate coupling of these devices, especially the exoskeletal systems with the upper or lower extremities is of immense importance as it is an integral part of the control system. In particular, the control strategy and its ability to adapt the exoskeletal system with the existing and physiological functionality of the user, is an integral part of the system requirement. In the controller implementation, a number of methods are proposed including using the excitation signal, similar to the existing neuromuscular system.... 

The Quadriceps Muscle as one of the major muscles of the human body plays a key role in knee function. Strengthening of this muscle is recommanded to prevent knee pain and even cure some diseases. Many believe that by strengthening the medial part with respect to the lateral part of the quadriceps muscles, patellofemoral pain syndrome can be prevented or treated. In this regard, a muscle strengthening system, based on magneticorheological brake is designed which provides isometric, isotonic and isokinetic exercise of knee joint and also enables the selective muscle strengthening. Beforehand a musculoskeletal model of lower extremity is developed in OpenSim software, capable to estimate force... 

The spine like every other mechanical pillar, is exposed to buckling and loss of stability. While existing biomechanical models emphasize the pressure force on the disk as the main cause of injury, there is also a possibility of local buckling phenomenon in vertebral discs. Because of the prevalence and high cost of lower back pain, it is essential to evaluate the forces carried by disks and lumbar muscles during occupational activities more accurately. In this regard, hybrid EMG-assisted optimization (EMGAO) approaches are most common methods for estimation of spinal loads. These models, not only use EMG data to be physiologically creditable, but also satisfy equilibrium requirements at all... 

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is one of the most important causes of disability in the youth and costs enormous expenses for the government. Most SCI subjects use wheelchair as their main way of locomotion while standing and walking can benefit them in various aspects. The role of lower extremity muscles has been investigated in paraplegic gait with active orthoses or in partial weight support condition. However, due to the large expenses of active orthoses, their application have been limited to clinical trials and yet most SCI individuals use traditional AFO and KAFO for walking. The role and significance of trunk and upper extremity muscles (TUEM) has been investigated only in balance... 

Cerebral palsy (CP) is one of the most common motor disability among children that caused by damage to brain or defective development of brain before, during or just after birth. Due to this damage, children with CP have cognitive and motor problems. As an important activity of daily living, walking enhances independence, social activities and quality of life. Much of therapy for children is aimed to improve their gait. A usual technique to evaluate how a person walk and detect abnormal features in walking pattern is gait analysis. Lots of studies have been done on gait kinematics of CPs and classified them based on their kinematis. The purpose of this thesis is studying muscles activity of... 

With advancements in control and robotics technology, wearable robots have gained multiple applications in rehabilitation and power augmentation. In robots developed for power augmentation purposes, human decisions are combined with robot power to enhance the human ability to perform various activities, such as carrying heavy loads and walking for a long time. In cases where robots are designed to help humans to carry heavy loads, the robot control strategy should minimize the human-robot interaction forces. In this case, heavy loads influence the robot and the user no longer need to use more energy than normal walking, and the robot works following human intentions. Where the robot works to... 

Investigating the influence of shoes on variables of human biomechanics is of a high importance. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of auxetic Nike Free RN shoe on kinematics and kinetics of human body. It was asked from 11 healthy male to perform drop vertical jump in three conditions: with auxetic Nike Free RN, with conventional shoe and barefoot. 3D Cartesian positions of the markers, which were stuck to the subjects’ bodies, were recoeded using Vicon camera system. Ground reaction force and its center of pressure of each foot captured using two force plates. Moreover, activation of rectus abdominis, longissimus, iliocostalis lomburom and multifidus were recorded using... 

Our body makes use of many degrees of freedom in muscle space. As a result, there are many solutions for activating muscles when performing a specific task. “how our central nervous system (CNS) controls abundant degrees of freedom?” has been a popular question for researchers in the field of motor control since Bernstein. The existence of muscle synergies is one of the proposed hypothesis, and there is experimental evidence that they are encoded in our CNS as building blocks. The aim of this study is to study the effect of training on the number, structures, and activation profiles of muscle synergies that are used for maintaining balance. For this purpose, electromyography data from 28... 

Human body movements are achieved by activating a number of muscles. It has been shown that the central nervous system (CNS) plays the main role in controlling rhythmic activities (including walking, chewing, etc.). However, the way the central nervous system works in controlling different parts of the body has always been discussed due to the excess degrees of freedom to perform certain tasks. Controlling a group of muscles (under the name of muscle synergy analysis) instead of each one of them has been one of the most attractive and efficient recent ideas to better understand the CNS function. Also, a similar concept can be expressed for kinematic synergies (by the degrees of freedom of...