Driven gait orthosis to do locomotor training of paraplegic patients

Recent studies have confirmed that with a regular treadmill training walking capabilities in incomplete spinal cord injured subjects as well as in hemiplegic patients can be improved. In the beginning of this training the legs of the patients have to be assisted. So far this has been done by physiotherapists guiding the legs during gait on a moving treadmill. As this can be a very exhausting job for the therapists, the training usually is too short to get optimal results. Therefore a driven gait orthosis has been developed that can move the legs of a patient in a physiological way on a moving treadmill. The orthosis is adjustable in size so different patients can use it. There are actuators at the knee and hip joints that are controlled via a position controller. A passive foot lifter controls the ankle joint. This setup allows the legs of the patient to be moved in different, physiological gait patterns on the treadmill without any assistance of the patient or a physiotherapist. First tests with the orthosis showed good results. Several patients could be trained for more then half an hour and with a higher speed then in the manually assisted training. All trained patients reported no problems with this training; on the contrary, they felt more comfortable with the new method.