Off-Axis (Pivoting-sliding) Elliptical Training System

Each year, millions of people suffer from musculoskeletal injuries which is among the leading causes for disability. Some of these injuries involve strenuous off-axis (as opposed to the main sagittal plane) loadings to the knee and other joints (e.g. ankle) of the lower limb. Therefore, it is important to improve neuromuscular control of off-axis motions to reduce musculoskeletal injuries and to provide effective rehabilitation after injury or surgery.

This project represents a unique, accessible and promising approach to rehabilitation after lower limb musculoskeletal injuries or surgery. In addition, this treatment plan holds the potential for preventing injuries resulting from excessive off-axis loads.

1) Potential Benifits :

• Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injury
  rehabilitation / prevention
  
  
• Knee Osteoarthritis (OA) prevention
  
  
• Post Surgury Care

(2) Potential application :

• Computer assisted rehabilitation training:
  - Flexibility of off-axis movement and advanced control of the device could help effective and efficient recover from injuries or surgeries.
  - Position and torque sensors continuously monitor patients to prevent possible further injury during exercise and to ensure safety.
  - Integrated virtual-reality (VR) games are used focusing on the specific injured joint (e.g., external pivoting or/and lateral sliding training of a selective limb) to guide and motivate patients for personalized and highly effective lower-limb injury rehabilitation .
  
  
• Clinical diagnosis / evaluation:
  - The assessment capabilities (video tracking & motion tracking) of the system allow us to obtain quantitative measurements and provide outcome evaluations (musculoskeletal and biokinetic analysis) for clinical decision making.
  
  
• Computer simulated training for injury prevention:
  - The device could also be used as a training system for healthy individuals by simulating different injury-prone scenarios combined corresponding virtual-reality missions.
  - The goal is to accommodate users for such harsh conditions and to prevent future injuries in real life.
  - Difficulty of tasks are adaptively adjusted, from easy to hard, so as to avoid unnecessary injury.