VOLUNTARY TELEMETRY CONTROL OF FUNCTIONAL ELECTRICAL STIMULATORS

With the assistance of crutches and functional electrical stimulation (FES) we are abbe to restore standing and simple gait in some spinal c ord injured (SCI) patients. In the present rehabilitative systems the patient divides the gait cycle into 'stance' and 'swing' phase by usin g pushbuttons mounted in the handles of the crutches. These are then h ard wired to the functional electrical stimulator. We present the deve lopment and evaluation of a surface mount technology based telemetry s ystem that provides reliable and interference resistant wireless contr ol of FES assisted walking. The system makes use of radio frequency ca rriers operating at a frequency of 40 MHz. Crutch pushbutton signals a re coded and transferred from the transmitter placed in the crutch to the receiver which is firmly attached to the patient's waist and conne cted to the stimulator The telemetry system was found to be of special importance for both complete and incomplete SCI subjects and is curre ntly in use at the Rehabilitation Institute of the Republic of Sloveni a.