富田 豊

独自に開発した関節可動域訓練装置を用いて, 膝関節と股関節に対し連続的に関節可動域訓練(CPROM訓練)を繰り返し, 他動的関節トルクに対する影響を検討した. 対象は健常者4人と痙性麻痺患者6人である. 股・膝関節に対してCPROM訓練を施行することによって, 健常者および痙性麻痺患者ともに, その他動的関節トルクは減少し, 患者群では内側ハムストリングスと内側広筋の筋活動は有意に減少した. 痙性片麻痺患者1例において, CPROM訓練中に内側腓腹筋からH波を導出した. CPROM訓練により, 最大膝関節トルクは有意に低下したが, H波振幅には変化を認めなかった. 痙性筋を有する四肢に対してROM訓練を繰返して施行すると, 筋緊張は軽減することが示唆されたが, その機序については今後の検討課題である.

外傷性脊髄損傷による対麻痺患者5例(L1;2例, T10;2例, T5;1例)において, 新しいHKAFOシステム, MSH-KAFO(a HKAFO with a medial single hip joint ; Walkabout^[○!R] ; McKay1992)を作製し, 立位・歩行能力の経過, 歩行スピード, エネルギー消費量を測定してその有用性を検討した, 全例で優れた立位安定性が得られ, 両側ロフストランド杖での平地歩行が可能となり, 歩行時のエネルギー消費(平均2.75METs)も十分低かった.また, 車椅子との併存性, 着脱容易性, 美容的外観といった現実性因子にも対応しているため, 対麻痺者の立位・歩行導入のための有望な装具になると考えられた.一方, 歩調が遅く, 重複歩距離が短いため, 歩行速度(平均19.94m/min)は遅かった.

歩行における体幹の動揺性を測定することを目的に, 小型加速度計を被検者の腰背部に固定して得られた加速度波形の再現性を検討し, 床反力やわれわれが考案したレーザーポインターとビデオを用いた歩行計測とを比較した.対象は健常成人5人と対麻痺患者1人である.対麻痺患者はT_<10-11>高位完全麻痺の男性で, 内側股継手付長下肢装具(Walkabout^[○!R])を装着し, 両ロフストランド杖にて歩行可能である.今回測定した加速度は, 正常歩行, 異常歩行ともに, 良好な再現性を有し, 床反力とも高い相関が得られた.したがって, 場所をとらずにどこででも, 短時間で簡便に行える本法の信頼性および妥当性は高く, 歩行分析の一手法として有用と考えられる

Magnetic flowmeters, which have been one of the standard instrument to measure liquid flowrate in industry, were applied to tomographic imaging of flow velocity field, based on the fact that there are no exciting magnetic fields that induce the flow signal proportional to volumetric flowrate free from the velocity profile. Two-dimensional case was examined theoretically for the reason of simplicity, and a flowmeter with eight magnetic coils and eight signal pick-up electrodes was developed. Driving alternating current of unit ampere was fed to eight combinations of pairs of the coils and induced electro-motive force were picked up across eight combinations of pairs of the electrodes. Flows in a pipe were assumed to be fully developed and axially symmetric since the straight approach flow has the length of forty-five times of the pipe diameter (45D). Since field interaction model of the meter is ill-posed, some prior knowledge, such as non-negativeness of the flow velocity and smoothness of the profile, was introduced to reconstruct the velocity profile.<br>In order to examine the possibility of reconstructions for various velocity profiles, to make different velocity profiles is needed. When the pipe is shifted perpendicularly to its axis, the weight function is different from what it was. Therefore the shift of the pipe position was treated instead of the different velocity profiles for simplicity. As a result, when the pipe was shifted, the same reconstruction regardless to displacement was achieved. The flowrate estimated with the present equipment agreed with a commercially available standard magnetic flowmeter within 5% accuracy.

Magnetic flowmeters, which have been one of the standard instrument to measure liquid flowrate in industry, were applied to tomographic imaging of flow velocity field, based on the fact that there are no exciting magnetic fields that induce the flow signal proportional to volumetric flowrate free from the velocity profile. Two-dimensional case was examined theoretically for the reason of simplicity, and a flowmeter with eight magnetic coils and eight signal pick-up electrodes was developed. Driving alternating current of unit ampere was fed to eight combinations of pairs of the coils and induced electro-motive force were picked up across eight combinations of pairs of the electrodes. Flows in a pipe were assumed to be fully developed and axially symmetric since the straight approach flow has the length of forty-five times of the pipe diameter (45D). Since field interaction model of the meter is ill-posed, some prior knowledge, such as non-negativeness of the flow velocity and smoothness of the profile, was introduced to reconstruct the velocity profile.<br>In order to examine the possibility of reconstructions for various velocity profiles, to make different velocity profiles is needed. When the pipe is shifted perpendicularly to its axis, the weight function is different from what it was. Therefore the shift of the pipe position was treated instead of the different velocity profiles for simplicity. As a result, when the pipe was shifted, the same reconstruction regardless to displacement was achieved. The flowrate estimated with the present equipment agreed with a commercially available standard magnetic flowmeter within 5% accuracy.

Objective evaluation of the patient's condition is important in a clinical diagnosis. Since the frequency characteristics of the respiratory impedance represent the airway constriction, they are often used to diagnose the obstructive lung diseases. Forced oscillation technique is appropriate to measure the respiratory impedance, and has been often used. But due to the limit of the frequency response of conventional device, the frequency characteristics of human respiratory impedance could be measured only up to 20Hz. In this study, by differentiating displacement signal of the piston which excites the flow, the frequency characteristics of human respiratory impedance could be measured over the frequency range of 2-120Hz, and found to be characterized by two resonances at 8-10Hz and at 80-100Hz. Conventionally, to obtain the frequency characteristics, FFT technique was frequently used, and it required long measurement time. But since it is difficult to confine patients with advanced obstructive lung diseases to a measurement instrument for a long time, we tried to shorten the measurement time by employing the Auto-Regressive Moving Average model (ARMA model) parameter estimation technique, which made it possible to measure the frequency characteristics with a data of one second, corresponding to about one sixteenth of the conventional FFT method. In addition, by using the estimated ARMA model parameters, a 4-element equivalent electrical circuit model is derived for the human respiratory system. Four element values were measured for ten normal males, and found to be slightly lower than those of the previous reports, which had noticed only the resonance at 8-10Hz. Since the 4-element model represents the condition of the human respiratory system, the estimated values can be applied to the clinical diagnosis of lung diseases. The respiratory function test was carried out to determine the degree of constriction of human airway passages induced by cigarette smoke particle irritant aerosols. Nine normal male smokers were asked to inhale cigarette smoke deeply 15 times over 5 minutes (nicotin 1.35mg, and tar 21mg). After smoking, increases in resistance, which indicated the acute effect of airway passage constriction, were observed.