objectives: this paper describes further improvement and preliminarily evaluation of a novel viscoelastic ankle-foot prosthesis prototype. the objective was to control the ankle hysteresis at slow and normal walking speeds. methods: inspired by the ankle biomechanics, in which the hysteresis differs based on the gait speeds, a manually damping control mechanism imbedded in the prosthesis for ad...

BACKGROUND Hypothyroidism is a common, potentially treatable endocrine disorder. Since hypothyroidism is not always associated with the signs and symptoms typically attributed to it, the diagnosis is often missed. Conversely, patients with typical signs and symptoms may not have the disease when laboratory tests are performed. AIMS We aimed to determine the accuracy of physical examination in...

INTRODUCTION The inflammatory reflex is a physiological mechanism through which the nervous system maintains immunologic homeostasis by modulating innate and adaptive immunity. We postulated that the reflex might be harnessed therapeutically to reduce pathological levels of inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis by activating its prototypical efferent arm, termed the cholinergic anti-inflammatory...

Following peripheral nerve sections some locomotor deficits appear which are gradually compensated for by spinal and supraspinal mechanisms. The present work is aimed at identifying contributions of both types of mechanisms. We performed a denervation of the left lateral gastrocnemius-soleus (LGS) muscles in three cats which was followed by a spinalization at the 13th thoracic segment. Three ot...

The purpose of the present study was to investigate how stretch reflex (SR) responses in the ankle extensor (soleus: SOL) and flexor (tibialis anterior: TA) muscles would be modulated with temporal and/or spatial predictions of external perturbations and whether their effects are specific to the standing posture. SR responses in the SOL/TA were elicited by imposing quick ankle toes-up/toes-down...

INTRODUCTION Muscle atrophy, spasticity, and deformity are among long term complication of spinal cord injury (SCI) veterans. There are numerous studies evaluating effect of functional electrical stimulation on muscle properties of SCI people, but less research has focused on the benefits of passive cycling in the management of spasticity and improving ROM of lower limbs in individuals with SCI...

AIM To examine the passive length-tension relations in the myotendinous components of the plantarflexor muscles of children with and without cerebral palsy (CP) under conditions excluding reflex muscle contraction. METHOD A cross-sectional, non-interventional study was conducted in a hospital outpatient clinic. Passive torque-angle characteristics of the ankle were quantified from full planta...

Startling acoustic stimuli (SAS) can accelerate reaction times ("StartReact" effect), but the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Both direct release of a subcortically stored motor program and a subcortically mediated trigger for a cortically stored motor program have been hypothesized. To distinguish between these hypotheses, we examined the StartReact effect in humans with pure hereditary ...