Development and Assessment of Measuring/Rehabilitation Device for Myelopathy Patients with Lower Extremity Function

Disordered function of maniphalanx and difficulty with ambulation will occur insofar as a human has a failure in the spinal marrow. Cervical spondylotic myelopathy as one of the myelopathy emanates from not only external factors but also increased age. In addition, the diacrisis is difficult since cervical spondylotic myelopathy is evaluated by a doctor-s neurological remark and imaging findings. As a quantitative method for measuring the degree of disability, hand-operated triangle step test (for short, TST) has formulated. In this research, a full automatic triangle step counter apparatus is designed and developed to measure the degree of disability in an accurate fashion according to the principle of TST. The step counter apparatus whose shape is a low triangle pole displays the number of stepping upon each corner. Furthermore, the apparatus has two modes of operation. Namely, one is for measuring the degree of disability and the other for rehabilitation exercise. In terms of usefulness, clinical practice should be executed before too long.

Authors:

• Hironobu Murayama
• Shohei Shimizu
• Masakazu Ohnuki
• Hisanori Mihara
• Tohru Kanada

Keywords:

• Cervical spondylotic myelopathy
• disorder of lower limbs
• measuringfunction
• rehabilitation function
• full automatic apparatus
• triangle step test.

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