Today there are around 90 million people suffering from Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) worldwide. Thanks to the progresses in emergency medical care, problems faced by SCI individuals after an accident are no longer life threatening. This has generated a shift of the priorities in medical research and practice towards improvements in their quality of life. The use of Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) for motion restoration in paralyzed limbs proved to have a potential to provide both functional and therapeutic benefits. The aim of this thesis is to investigate solutions which would improve quality of life of paraplegics by restoring the sit-to-stand, transfer from one surface to another and standing tasks. We aim at finding a good trade-off between achievable functionality of the FES system and its simplicity in terms of number of required sensors and computational cost and, accordingly, its applicability in clinical practice and daily life of paraplegic individuals.
Towards a functional assistance in transfer and posture of paraplegics using FES: From simulations to experiments