Electroencephalogram (EEG) and Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) System for Rehabilitation of Stroke Patients

Stroke is the leading cause of adult disability, and training in voluntary movement has been shown to be effective in rebuilding motor skills. We propose an EEG-FES system that can assist in the reconstruction of a closed-loop between motor commands and sensory feedbacks in stroke patients. The system uses event-related desynchronization (ERD) to reflect motor intentions. We did two pilot studies. One focused on extracting clear ERD from healthy subjects who must generally be trained for a few month to extract clear ERD. We also tested the effect of online visual feedback training. The results indicated that for some subjects, but not others, ERD could be extracted in a few days. The other study focused on whether FES (sensory feedback) affects ERD. The results indicated that there was no FES effect (leg stimulation) in leg motor area (Cz) ERD.

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