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Dropped Head Syndrome Attenuation by Hybrid Assistive Limb: A Preliminary Study of Three Cases on Cervical Alignment during Walking

Background and Objectives: Dropped head syndrome (DHS) is characterized by apparent neck extensor muscle weakness and difficulty in extending the neck to raise the head against gravity. DHS affects forward vision and eating behavior, and hence impairs quality of life. However, standardized treatment...

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Autores principales: Kadone, Hideki, Miura, Kousei, Kubota, Shigeki, Abe, Tetsuya, Shimizu, Yukiyo, Hada, Yasushi, Suzuki, Kenji, Sankai, Yoshiyuki, Koda, Masao, Yamazaki, Masashi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7353901/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32545567
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/medicina56060291
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author Kadone, Hideki
Miura, Kousei
Kubota, Shigeki
Abe, Tetsuya
Shimizu, Yukiyo
Hada, Yasushi
Suzuki, Kenji
Sankai, Yoshiyuki
Koda, Masao
Yamazaki, Masashi
author_facet Kadone, Hideki
Miura, Kousei
Kubota, Shigeki
Abe, Tetsuya
Shimizu, Yukiyo
Hada, Yasushi
Suzuki, Kenji
Sankai, Yoshiyuki
Koda, Masao
Yamazaki, Masashi
author_sort Kadone, Hideki
collection PubMed
description Background and Objectives: Dropped head syndrome (DHS) is characterized by apparent neck extensor muscle weakness and difficulty in extending the neck to raise the head against gravity. DHS affects forward vision and eating behavior, and hence impairs quality of life. However, standardized treatment of DHS has not yet been established. The purpose of this preliminary study is to seek for a possibility of effective non-surgical, conservative treatment for DHS, by applying a robotic treatment. Materials and Methods: A wearable exoskeleton type robot suit hybrid assistive limb (HAL) was applied to three patients with DHS. A course of HAL treatment included 10 sessions of gait training using HAL. One session lasted about an hour. Case 1 completed the course twice, the first time in two weeks (one session per day) and second time in 10 months (one session per month). Case 2 and Case 3 completed the course once in 10 weeks (one session per week) and in 6 months (one session per 2.5 weeks), respectively. Immediate and lasting effects of HAL on the reduction of cervical sagittal vertical alignment (SVA) during gait was evaluated using a motion capture system. Results: Case 1 showed improvement of cervical alignment during gait after the HAL courses of both different frequencies. Case 2 did not show improvement of cervical alignment during gait. Case 3 showed improvement of cervical kyphosis but not of cervical sagittal alignment during gait. Conclusions: The results of the preliminary study suggest that gait training using HAL may be an effective option of conservative treatment for a part of DHS patients. They also suggest that a lack of immediate effects on the cervical alignment and a lack of ability to perform compensatory trunk motion may indicate a non-responding patient. Generalization of the results requires further research with more cases.
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spelling pubmed-73539012020-08-05 Dropped Head Syndrome Attenuation by Hybrid Assistive Limb: A Preliminary Study of Three Cases on Cervical Alignment during Walking Kadone, Hideki Miura, Kousei Kubota, Shigeki Abe, Tetsuya Shimizu, Yukiyo Hada, Yasushi Suzuki, Kenji Sankai, Yoshiyuki Koda, Masao Yamazaki, Masashi Medicina (Kaunas) Article Background and Objectives: Dropped head syndrome (DHS) is characterized by apparent neck extensor muscle weakness and difficulty in extending the neck to raise the head against gravity. DHS affects forward vision and eating behavior, and hence impairs quality of life. However, standardized treatment of DHS has not yet been established. The purpose of this preliminary study is to seek for a possibility of effective non-surgical, conservative treatment for DHS, by applying a robotic treatment. Materials and Methods: A wearable exoskeleton type robot suit hybrid assistive limb (HAL) was applied to three patients with DHS. A course of HAL treatment included 10 sessions of gait training using HAL. One session lasted about an hour. Case 1 completed the course twice, the first time in two weeks (one session per day) and second time in 10 months (one session per month). Case 2 and Case 3 completed the course once in 10 weeks (one session per week) and in 6 months (one session per 2.5 weeks), respectively. Immediate and lasting effects of HAL on the reduction of cervical sagittal vertical alignment (SVA) during gait was evaluated using a motion capture system. Results: Case 1 showed improvement of cervical alignment during gait after the HAL courses of both different frequencies. Case 2 did not show improvement of cervical alignment during gait. Case 3 showed improvement of cervical kyphosis but not of cervical sagittal alignment during gait. Conclusions: The results of the preliminary study suggest that gait training using HAL may be an effective option of conservative treatment for a part of DHS patients. They also suggest that a lack of immediate effects on the cervical alignment and a lack of ability to perform compensatory trunk motion may indicate a non-responding patient. Generalization of the results requires further research with more cases. MDPI 2020-06-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7353901/ /pubmed/32545567 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/medicina56060291 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Kadone, Hideki
Miura, Kousei
Kubota, Shigeki
Abe, Tetsuya
Shimizu, Yukiyo
Hada, Yasushi
Suzuki, Kenji
Sankai, Yoshiyuki
Koda, Masao
Yamazaki, Masashi
Dropped Head Syndrome Attenuation by Hybrid Assistive Limb: A Preliminary Study of Three Cases on Cervical Alignment during Walking
title Dropped Head Syndrome Attenuation by Hybrid Assistive Limb: A Preliminary Study of Three Cases on Cervical Alignment during Walking
title_full Dropped Head Syndrome Attenuation by Hybrid Assistive Limb: A Preliminary Study of Three Cases on Cervical Alignment during Walking
title_fullStr Dropped Head Syndrome Attenuation by Hybrid Assistive Limb: A Preliminary Study of Three Cases on Cervical Alignment during Walking
title_full_unstemmed Dropped Head Syndrome Attenuation by Hybrid Assistive Limb: A Preliminary Study of Three Cases on Cervical Alignment during Walking
title_short Dropped Head Syndrome Attenuation by Hybrid Assistive Limb: A Preliminary Study of Three Cases on Cervical Alignment during Walking
title_sort dropped head syndrome attenuation by hybrid assistive limb: a preliminary study of three cases on cervical alignment during walking
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7353901/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32545567
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/medicina56060291
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