Muscle control of fore-aft and vertical body center of mass accelerations of human slip recovery gait: A simulation study using wearable sensor shoes

摘要

The human brain is equipped with a motor control system that can prevent most falling situations due to foot slip from happening. The aim of this study is to check out how individual lower limb muscles accelerate the body center of mass (COM) during single and double support in human slip recovery gait. Subjects were recruited to conduct both the slip recovery gait and normal walking gait experiments. The walking motion and ground reaction forces (GRF) were measured by an optical motion tracking system and a wearable GRF sensor system, respectively. Then muscle-driven simulations were conducted in OpenSim. An induced acceleration analysis determined the contribution of each muscle to COM accelerations. We found that vastus intermedius, medial gastrocnemius, soleus, and tibialis anterior were the primary contributors to fore-aft and vertical body COM accelerations both in normal walking gait and slip recovery gait, and more muscle contributors were involved in slip recovery gait, which accomplished slip recovery gait with their control pattern responding to foot slip.