Pedaling parameters behavior on healthy subjects: Towards a rehabilitation indication

It is of outmost importance to identify the quantitative indicators that characterize the rehabilitation degree of the lower limbs of stroke patients and qualitative indicators of the quality of the movement. As a first step in this direction, a cycling ergometer, used in hospitals and rehabilitation clinics, was modified to provide informations about the force applied in the pedals and the pedal angles. One group of non-pathological subjects performed a set of trials at different workloads and cadence values, to analyze the effect of these variables on force output. An increased workload resulted in the raise of the work performed by each leg, whereas the cadence results were inconclusive. Results suggest that the variation of the workload may be a suitable method to characterize motor impairments.