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      • HARVEST
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      Computer Simulation of the Effects of Muscle Co-activation and Joint Stiffness on Postural Stability

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      SHABANI-THESIS-2016.pdf (2.461Mb)
      Date
      2016-06-09
      Author
      Shabani, Mohammad 1990-
      ORCID
      0000-0003-3541-6076
      Type
      Thesis
      Degree Level
      Masters
      Metadata
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      Abstract
      Postural stability is affected by several biomechanical factors including posture, foot placement, intrinsic muscle stiffness, and joint stiffness due to muscle co-activation. Increasing natural postural stability could make balance control easier for individuals with diminished postural responses. However, it is not clear which biomechanical factors most significantly contribute to the natural postural stability. The objective of this thesis is to simulate the effect of intrinsic muscle stiffness and muscle co-activation on the postural stability using a musculoskeletal computer model subjected to support-platform perturbations. We developed a customized static-optimization method to encourage co-activation using joint stiffness as an intermediate variable to improve postural stability. To this end, we also implemented a short-range stiffness muscle model and compared its stabilizing effects to a standard Hill-type muscle model. Our result showed that co-activation of muscles resulted in higher joint stiffness and higher postural stability and that intrinsic muscle short-range stiffness contributed significantly to postural stability.
      Degree
      Master of Science (M.Sc.)
      Department
      Computer Science
      Program
      Computer Science
      Supervisor
      Stavness, Ian
      Committee
      Gutwin, Carl; Keil, Mark; Zhang, Chris
      Copyright Date
      May 2016
      URI
      http://hdl.handle.net/10388/8135
      Subject
      Postural stability
      Musculoskeletal simulation
      Co-activation
      Static Optimization
      Short-range stiffness
      Hill-type muscle model
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