Programmable Muscle Stimulator For Paralytic Patients

Abstract

In this project, a general purpose, low-cost, programmable, portable and high performance stimulator is designed and implemented. Stimulators are the system which can generate pulses whose amplitude, frequency, and duty cycle can be adjusted. These devices play an important role in stimulating the nerves and muscles of the human body. Over the last three decades, neuromuscular stimulators have offered new possibilities for the treatment of many organ failures. Electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) is basically the elicitation of muscle contraction using electric impulses. It potentially works via an improvement in the speed of motor unit activation. It takes approximately 10000 repetitions for the brain to learn how to quickly send a message to your muscles via the quickest nerve pathways. The more frequent a muscle is recruited the better a body becomes at finding the quickest way to recruit that muscle. To provide repeated contractions to accelerate this learning process, a microcontroller is used in the design of the stimulator. The frequency and time period of the designed system can be controlled using a keyboard. In order to provide temporal recovery from paralysis the affected muscles can be identified and stimulated in a periodic sequence by driving required electrical current intensity into the muscle. A survey was conducted by consulting various physiotherapists to find out various parameters required for the muscle stimulator and in accordance to that the parameters were set. The performance test of the system has shown that the results are reliable.