Investigating Kinaesthetic Illusions Induced by Cutaneous Vibrations in People with Upper Limb Differences

Abstract

Rejection rates of prosthetic limbs are still high as many users report not benefitting from them. As one reason they state the absence of sensory feedback from their device. Research also has shown that the sole dependence on visual feedback leads to high cognitive load and therefore increased fatigue when using an artificial limb.
The proprioceptive sense can be stimulated using cutaneous vibrations and eliciting illusions of limb movements. This doctoral research investigated the illusion and its potential application as sensory feedback for prosthetic limbs. The main advantage from this method is its non-invasive nature and the low level of training effort because the natural pathways in the human body are used.
This work is the first to focus on participants with upper limb differences and to develop a closed loop feedback control to ensure accurate and reliable stimuli. The methodology how to induce kinaesthetic illusions successfully was reviewed from previous studies on unimpaired participants.
Following extensive patient and public involvement of key stake holders (e.g. clinicians and users) to guide the design of the research, two sequential experimental studies aimed to look at the potential of the setup to induce illusions of arm movements in a cohort of able-bodied participants and on people with limb differences. Participants included those with congenital and acquired limb absence, at the transradial and transhumeral limb level.
A majority of the participants (87%) experienced illusions of arm and phantom limb movements. Even individuals with congenital limb absence felt parts of an arm moving that they did not possess; a novel finding in this area of research.
The user perspective is considered as quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Insights gained from this work prove the potential to further explore the feasibility of applying illusions as sensory feedback for prostheses.

Date of Award	16 Jan 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Portsmouth
Supervisor	Peter Kyberd (Supervisor), Joe Moore (Supervisor) & Josh Robertson (Supervisor)