Development of rowing machine using functional electrical stimulation

Abstract

This development of machines and equipment to make elderly people healthy in their daily lives is important these days. Especially, resistance training equipment is effective for prevention of muscle atrophy in not only healthy adult people, but also the elderly people, and even disabled individuals. Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) is the artificial stimulation of muscle which have lost nervous control, with the aim of providing muscular contraction and producing a functional useful movement for exercise, standing, and walking. Some authors demonstrated that FES-rowing for persons with spinal cord injury was safe and it also decreased the risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Based on a new concept to effectively restrengthen disused muscles and to enable whole body exercise in seniors or paraplegics, we developed a hybrid power rehabilitation equipment including FES technology. The purpose of this study was to develop a new FES-rowing machine which the elderly and paraplegic patients could use for safe and effective rehabilitation exercise.