Tricycle driving: Paraplegic with New Technology World Champion

Every year amateur cyclists are astonished, how David Millar and Co. pedal at the Tour de France to sporty top performances. Less known are the FES-sports days, the achievements produced there are similarly impressive: At the end of June paraplegic people had the possibility to prove themselves in tricycle driving and paddling at Cardiff, UK.

01.08.2006

Because it is hard for paraplegics to balance on tricycles, doctors and researchers of the neurological clinic from the University of Munich developed a special training program. Successfully: One of their patients, Reinhardt Vetter, won the tricycle driving in Cardiff. He won and achieved the world record for 1000-metre bicycle driving for paraplegic in a time of five minutes and four seconds.

This result did not occur simply by luck. This proved another Munich patient. Sabine Kaiser cycled and passed the final line in the centerfield of the tricycle drivers. As a tribute for the excellent results of the sportsmen the next FES-sports days are going to be held in Munich.

The main component of the special training method developed by the Munich researchers is electric stimulation. Electrodes are being stuck to the skin and they stimulate the ends of the nerves with electricity until the matching muscle parts spontaneously contract. Electric stimuli applied to the leg muscles in a certain order let paralyzed body parts move. In a manner that paralyzed legs can kick bicycle pedals. Till today this method was not sufficient enough, that a paraplegic patient can cover a distance which would be needed in everyday life.

Therefore, the team around Dr. Johann Szecsi and Prof. Andreas Straube established a special project: "Functional electric stimulation and bicycle driving: Development of a standard for the improvement of the health situation and mobility of people with paralysis of leg musculature". The scientists developed a method with which they reached an optimum adaptation from bicycle and stimulation of the patient. After the basic establishment of the FES-bicycle driving technology for paraplegics, the researchers compared the achievements of recumbent bikes and normal bicycles, as for example dutch bikes.

In the process the recumbent bike brought better results. Very effective are light recumbent bikes and those with small rolling resistance. The throttle is attached to the handlebars so that the patient can control the intensity of the stimulation.

The scientists tested different frequencies in the area of stimulation. They tried low stimulations at about 20 hertz as well as middle frequencies at about 4,000 hertz. In addition, they experimented with double impulses.

The Munich researcher group was very successful with home training. By letting eight participants practise three times per week at least one hour on the ergometer at home, the power, stamina and dimensions of the paralysed muscles increased up to 50 percent. The power and mass increases of the musculature of the participants are checked on an average every 2-3 weeks in the Munich Centre for Sensorimotor Research, and necessary changes are discussed and carried through.

Meanwhile all patients can move their tricycles by continuous kicking of the pedals and they cover distances of up to 2.5 kilometres at each session. In a second project this method is already tested on patients with half-sided paralysis, multiple sclerosis and other paralysis illnesses.

REHACARE.de; Source: Centre for Sensorimotor Research, University Hospital of Munich - Großhadern.