Master Thesis Project (Microengineering, Mechanical engineering or Bioengineering)
SPINAL CORD STIMULATION TO RESTORE CYCLING AFTER PARALYSIS

Description:

We are developing spinal electrical cord stimulation protocols to restore motor functions of people paralyzed due to spinal cord injury. In this context, we are interfacing the stimulation with a recumbent bike that enables outdoor cycling. Your objective is to contribute to this integration and its evaluation. This project will be a joint project under the supervision of the NeuroRestore center (EPFL/CHUV) and the Bern university of applied Science (BFH).

Objective:

• Develop stimulation protocols to adapt muscle activity to the cycling movement on a trike and personalize stimulation in patients with spinal cord injury.
• Identify measures to evaluate the use of the trike with and without stimulation (trike logs and stimulation logs)
• Analyze outcome measures from the trike (force sensors, IMU’s, power measures etc..) to quantify the effect of training with the trike with and without stimulation over time.
• Identify and analyze physiological changes related to the use of the trike (EMGs, cardiac frequency, generated force).
• Adapt testing to an indoor cycling device for rehabilitation (BiPed Trike) in collaboration with a research team at UNIL (Dr. Jérôme Barral)
• Evaluate the movement dependencies and performance to optimize the combinations of movements and stimulation.

Location:

The candidate will work at our offices at the CHUV, Hôpital Nestlé, Avenue Pierre-Decker 5, 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland.

Contact:

Applications including a CV, short motivation letter, and the names and full contact details of two referees should be sent to leonie.asboth@chuv.ch and sebastian.tobler@bfh.ch

Please click here to apply.