MIT-Skywalker

Abstract

The ability to walk is important for independent living and when this capacity is affected by neurological injury, gait therapy is the traditional approach to re-train the nervous system. The importance of this problem is illustrated by the approximately 5.8 million stroke survivors alive in the US today and an estimated additional 700,000 strokes occurring each year, many requiring gait therapy. This manuscript presents the design and proof-of-concept testing for a novel device to deliver gait therapy. While robotic devices to train gait therapy exist, none of them take advantage of the concept of passive walkers and most of them impose the kinematics of unimpaired gait on impaired walkers. Yet research has found that proper neural input and stimulation is a critical factor for an efficacious therapy program. This novel device might afford a more ecological gait therapy including heel-strike.