著者

Ai Higuchi Junichiro Shiraishi Yuichi Kurita Tomohiro Shibata

出版者

Fuji Technology Press Ltd.

雑誌

Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics (ISSN:09153942)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.32, no.4, pp.798-811, 2020-08-20 (Released:2020-08-20)

参考文献数

28

被引用文献数

4

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Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects a wide range of motor and non-motor symptoms. Freezing of gait (FOG) is such a motor symptom of PD that frequently results in falling, and almost half of PD patients suffer from FOG. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of a robotic assistance system called UPS-PD, which was developed to suppress FOG. The double limb support phase (DLS) in a 10-m straight-line walking task, the gait time and step counts were measured in five PD subjects. In addition, the safety of the UPS-PD in a healthy person was investigated using OpenSim, and the DLS parameters in four healthy elderly subjects were evaluated. In the experiment with the PD patients, the DLS parameters of two subjects showed an improvement. Furthermore, the step length of one subject and the step length and walking speed of the other subject were improved. Moreover, there were no problems in terms of instability of gait in both the PD patients. The UPS-PD did not adversely affect the gait of healthy elderly subjects and the walking of a healthy subject model in the simulation. Therefore, the UPS-PD is considered to be a useful device for improving walking in PD patients.

著者

Eriko Mizuno Naoya Osugi Haruo Sakuma Tomohiro Shibata

出版者

THE JAPANESE ASSOCIATION OF SPECIAL EDUCATION

雑誌

Journal of Special Education Research (ISSN:21875014)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2, no.1, pp.35-41, 2013-08-30 (Released:2014-05-09)

参考文献数

21

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Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) are known to have poor verbal faculties, and numerous studies have shown impaired verbal short-term memory (STM). In this study, we examine whether long-term training in music can enhance the digit span of verbal STM among individuals with DS. Four musically trained and four untrained individuals with DS and eight typically developed (TD) persons participated in the experiment, where they were asked to recite digit strings (from 2 to 5 digits) that were uttered by a vocaloid, i.e. a vocal synthesizer, and the number of trials they could recall correctly was scored. TD participants could recall almost all digit strings correctly. The musically trained DS (MDS) group has significantly higher score from the 2-digits to 4-digits string test than the untrained DS (UDS) group. The results show that long-term music training can enhance the verbal STM of individuals with DS.