Effects of a Wearable Hip Exoskeleton on Gait Performance in Patients After Hip Surgery

Background Patients after hip surgery often demonstrate reduced gait speed and limited independence at hospital discharge, which may hinder rehabilitation planning and safe return to the community. Walking speed is also an important prognostic indicator of functional recovery after total hip arthroplasty. Purpose To investigate the immediate effects of overground walking with a wearable hip exoskeleton (WHE) on functional mobility and spatiotemporal gait parameters in inpatients after hip surgery. Study design Single-group, within-subject comparison Methods Participants performed the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test and the 10-Meter Walk (10MWT) Test at self-selected and fast speeds under two conditions: unassisted walking and walking with a WHE. Total steps and time over the 10-m section were used to calculate gait speed, cadence, and step length. Each test was performed twice, and the mean value was used for analysis. Within-subject differences were analyzed using paired t-tests. For the 10MWT at fast speed, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used because the paired differences were not normally distributed. Statistical significance was set at α=0.05. Results For the TUG, WHE-assisted walking reduced time from 29.68±17.55 to 25.77±14.45 s (p=0.015). During the 10 MWT at self-selected speed, WHE-assisted walking reduced step count from 25.67±7.63 to 23.83±7.40 (p=0.024) and time from 21.78±10.76 to 18.96±8.63 s (p=0.003), and increased gait speed from 0.59±0.31 to 0.64±0.29 m/s (p=0.039) and step length from 0.42±0.13 to 0.46±0.14 m (p=0.015). At fast speed, WHE-assisted walking reduced time from 16.14±7.57 to 14.35±6.84 s (p<0.001) and increased gait speed from 0.78±0.38 to 0.87±0.41 m/s (p<0.001). Conclusions In inpatients after hip surgery, WHE-assisted walking was associated with immediate improvements in overground walking performance, including shorter 10MWT time and higher gait speed at both self-selected and fast speeds. Given the single-session design and fixed testing order, these findings should be interpreted as immediate performance changes observed while the WHE was worn.