• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2012

Objective: Dual-task walking deficits impact functional daily life, which often requires walking while performing simultaneous tasks such as talking, thinking or carrying an object. This study is to find out the latest trend of dual-task training's influence on ambulatory abilities of a stroke patient. Design: Systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Methods: This literature review was conducted in Pubmed and Sciencedirect with the follwing key words:stroke, cerebro-vascular accident, hemiplegia, gait, rehabilitation, exercise. 7 studies were chosen in findings by search tool. 3 studies were case study, 3 studies were cross sectional observational study and 1 study was randomized controlled trial. Results: It was found that stroke patients have difficulties in doing 2 motor tasks simultaneously and when they do 2 tasks, one is done in a naturally preferred activity areas. Moreover, when simply applying dual-tasks, the walking speed decreased. Meanwhile, when applying them through training, the speed increased. This showed the improvement of effective task-implementation abilities after dual-task training using task-integration models. Conclusions: In the beginning of the 2000s, dual-tasks were implemented by simply combining walking and cognition or exercise task, and the results of this study suggest that subjects with stroke have difficulty performing dual task. However, the latest trend is to let patients do the dual-task training by combining it with virtual reality. Therefore, dual task training could be performed in a safe in the environment such as virtual reality or augment reality.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.30-36
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• 2021

Objective: The objective of the present study was to analyze the relationship between strength of the lower extremity's joints and their local dynamic stability (LDS) of gait in elderly women. Method: Forty-five elderly women participated in this study. Average age, height, mass, and preference walking speed were 73.5±3.7 years, 153.8±4.8 cm, 56.7±6.4 kg, and 1.2±0.1 m/s, respectively. They were tested torque peak of the knee and ankle joints with a Human Norm and while they were walking on a treadmill at their preference speed for a long while, kinematic data were obtained using six 3-D motion capture cameras. LDS of the lower extremity's joints were calculated in maximum Lyapunov Exponent (LyE). Correlation coefficients between torque of the joints and LyE were obtained using Spearman rank. Level of significance was set at p<.05. Results: Knee flexion torque and its LDS was negatively associated with adduction-abduction and flexion-extension movement (p<.05). In addition, ratio of the knee flexion torque to extension and LDS was negatively related to internal-external rotation. Conclusion: In conclusion, knee flexion strength should preferentially be strengthened to increase LDS of the lower extremity's joints for preventing from small perturbations during walking in elderly women.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.99-104
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• 2017

PURPOSE: Gait disturbances in patients with hemiplegic stroke involve asymmetry of stance time. Step box training is used to supplement the limitations of stair walking training and increasing the torque value of the paralyzed lower leg's strength. This study aimed to investigate whether step-up training on unstable support could change walking ability in patients with chronic stroke. METHODS: Thirty stroke patients were randomly assigned to the step-up training group (experimental group), that performed training on an unstable surface, and the control group, that performed training on a stable surface. Walking speed, step length, and cadence were measured before and after training. Paired t-tests were used to compare pre- and post-intervention data, while the independent samples t-test was used to determine intergroup differences. Values of p < .05 were considered statistically significant. RESULTS: There was a significant difference in walking ability before versus after the intervention in both groups, although the experimental group showed greater differences than the control group (walking velocity by 8.1%; step length of the non-paralyzed side by 6.9%, respectively; p<.05). CONCLUSION: Step-up training might be more effective on an unstable surface than on a stable surface for increasing walking speed and step length of the non-paralyzed side.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.339-347
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• 2007

A hexapod walking robot had been developed for gathering information in the field. The developed robot was $260{\times}260{\times}130$ ($W{\times}L{\times}H$, mm) in size and 14.7 N in weight. The legs had nineteen degrees of freedom. A leg has three rotational joints actuated by small servomotors. Two servomotors placed at ankle and knee played the roles of vertical joint for up and down motions of the leg and the other one placed at coxa played the role of horizontal joint for forward and backward motions. In addition, a servomotor placed at thorax between the front legs and the middle legs played the role of vertical joint for pumping the two front legs to climb stair or inclination. Walking motion of the robot was executed by tripod gait. The robot was controlled by manual remote-controller communicated by an infrared ray. Two controllers were equipped to control the walking of the robot. The sub-controller using PIC microcomputer (Microchips, PIC16F84A) received the 16 bit command signal from the manual remote controller, decoded it to 8bit and transmitted it to the main microcomputer (RENESAS, SH2/7045), which controlled the 19 servomotors using the PWM command signals. Walking speeds were controlled by adjusting the period of command cycle and the stride. Forward walking speed were within 100 cm/min to 300 cm/min. However, experimental walking speed had the error of 4-40 cm/min to compare with the theoretical one, because of slippage of the leg and the circular arc motion of servomotor of coxa.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.1-10
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• 2016

Background: Gait problems appear in most stroke patients. Commonly, stroke patients show the typical abnormal gait patterns, such as circumduction, genu recurvatum, and spastic paretic stiff-legged gait. An inclined treadmill gait exercise is good for gait problems of stroke patients. In addition, the backward walking training has been recommended in order to improve the component of the movement for the forward walking. Objects: The purpose of this study to investigated the effects of backward walking with inclined treadmill training on the gait in chronic stroke patients. Methods: A total of 30 volunteers were randomly allocated to two groups that walked on an inclined treadmill: the experimental group ($n_1=15$), which walked backward, and the control group ($n_2=15$), which walked forward. To measure the improvement of the patients' gait, a Figure of Eight Walking Test (F8W), Four Square Step Test (FSST), and Functional Gait Assessment (FGA) were performed. We also measured spatio-temporal gait variables, including gait speed, cadence, stride length, and single limb support using a three-axial wireless accelerometer. The measurements were taken before and after the experiment. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare both groups before and after the interventions. The Mann-Whitney U test was used for the comparisons after the interventions. The statistical significance was set at ${\alpha}=.05$. Results: Before and after experiment, all dependent variables were significantly different between the two groups (p<.05). As compared to the control group, the experimental group showed more significant improvements in F8W, FSST, speed, cadence, stride length, and single limb support (p<.05); however, FGA in this group was not significantly different from the control (p>.05). Conclusion: Our results suggest that backward walking on an inclined treadmill is more effective for improving the gait of stroke patients than forward walking.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.1003-1004
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• 2009

• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.71-78
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• 2016

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate which treadmill walking training mode is more effective strategy for improving pulmonary function of persons with chronic stroke. METHODS: Twenty-one chronic stroke patients were allocated and randomly to an experimental group (treadmill training with randomized speed control, n=11) and a control group (treadmill training without speed change, n=10). All participants received 30 minutes of neurodevelopmental treatment. In addition, the two groups performed treadmill training for 20 minutes each time with or without speed change. Speed change was applied 40%, 50%, 60%, 70% of Heart Rate Reserve. All the exercise programs lasted six weeks, with five times per week. Pulmonary function was assessed before and after exercise program by using forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), and maximal voluntary ventilation (MVV). RESULTS: In the both groups, FEV1 was significantly increased after training (p<.05). Compared to the control group, the experimental group showed 11.9% larger amount of change (p<.05). In the experimental group, FVC and MVV were significantly increased after training (9.9%, 7.6%, respectively) (p<.05). But in the control group, there was no significant difference in the FVC and MVV after training. CONCLUSION: Treadmill training with randomized speed control will be a better positive rehabilitation program than treadmill training without speed change to improve pulmonary function in persons with chronic stroke.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.6237-6245
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• 2013

This study examined the effects of backward walking with rhythmic auditory stimulation on the gait and balance of stroke patients. Twenty-one people were divided randomly into three groups; group I(n=7, forward walking), group II(n=7, backward walking), group III(n=7, backward walking by rhythmic auditory stimulation). Each group was trained for 30 minutes 5 times per week for 3 weeks, and was evaluated using a 10m walking test, time up and go test, functional reach test, stride length and step length asymmetry ratio. As a result, the pre- to post-test measures revealed a significant effect in each group on the gait speed, gait symmetry and balance(p<.05). The walking speed, gait symmetry and balance were higher in group II (p<.05) than in group I and it was the highest in group III(p<.05). The stride length was higher in group II and group III(p<.05) than in group I. In conclusion, for stroke patients, backward walking training with rhythmic auditory stimulation is effective on the gait speed, gait symmetry and balance.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.567-572
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• 2004

In this research, a stable walking pattern generation method for a biped robot is presented. A biped robot is considered as constrained multibody system by several kinematic joints. The proposed method is based on the optimized polynomial approximation of the trunk motion along the moving direction. Foot motions can be designed according to the ground condition and walking speed. To minimize the deviation from the desired ZMP, the trunk motion is generated by the fifth order polynomial approximation. Walking simulation for a virtual biped robot is performed to demonstrate the effectiveness and validity of the proposed method. The method can be applied to the biped robot for stable walking pattern generation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 1991.11a
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• pp.146-154
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• 1991

As the application of robotic systems expand its scope, more research efforts are given in providing mobility to the robotic systems so that they can travel across various paths including those with formidable obstacles such as stairways or rough terrains. Legged locomotion is mainly concerned because the walking motion, like that of animal behavior, has many advantages over wheel type or track type locomotion especially in rough terrain. Walking robot, in general, having a discrete number of legs, have inherently low static stability. Static stability can be increased to a certain degree, by improving walking method, but it has many limitations such as reduced travel speed. A very promising possibility lies in the use of balancing weight, nevertheless its actual implementation is very rare. In this study, a 4-legged walking machine is developed and the static stability margin is increased with the balancing weight. In the future, this robot will be used to take an experiment on the walking in mush terrain.