2013/10/20

How Neuromodulation Being Applied in Pedal Wheelchair?

In general, to study the neuromodulation, it is often use the electrical simulation to help the recovery of nerve; however, the pedal wheelchairs do not use the electrical simulation at all.

The main feature of the pedal wheelchairs is that they enable patients to move their paralyzed legs. The patients have suffered from strokes that damaged parts of their brains, leaving half of their bodies paralyzed. as the healthy people can run without consciously thinking about it, using the pedal wheelchairs activate similar mechanism in the patients� bodies, enabling them to pedal with both legs.

Why a paralyzed leg can move again?

Normally when the healthy people walk, it is the brain to release the jogging instruction to the legs. But in the coursework of jogging the pedal wheelchair by a half paralyzed person (for example, left side paralyzed), the central pattern generator in the spinal cord generates the signal of the jogging instruction to the right leg by getting reflex signal from the left leg, & vice versa.

Although it's not been able to report the details in the medical science at this moment, this can be predictable. According to a research, this is caused by the response actually appears in the central pattern generator within the spinal cord.

These pedal wheelchairs provoke the hidden potential ability of human being, & are tools regenerating the human natural born gift in reflex actions. They are not transport equipment, but actually make the support of rehabilitation for paralyzed patients.

The babies can do lots of actions which are not instructed by the brain, but by the primitive reflex actions, for example, jogging or stepping reflex, Palmar grasp reflex, Babinski reflex & sucking reflex. They think that these reflexes are deeply related to the neuromodulation.

As for the rehabilitation effect, although there's lots of success patient cases, further scientific studies are now being done in the universities.

The pedaling does not only improve the motor functions in the patients� legs, but it also improves the central nerves in the spinal cord & the blood circulation in the brain & throughout the body, & the patients may even exercise their weakened legs to defer the degeneration. The patients regain more independence & freedom in their every day life.

Neuromodulation is a new medical expertise that does not depend on any surgical procedure & medication. It makes sufficient use of the body in the method of rehabilitation.

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