[Legacy Report] CSS Chapter Seminar: Development of a Gait Rehabilitation System

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Majority of movement problems, caused by stroke, spinal cord injury, or aging, requires specialized therapies to improve limb functioning. Movement therapy for lower limbs face more challenge than that for upper limbs, because of the critical roles played by the low limbs during standing and walking. Currently, the rehabilitation of walking involves the use of braces or body weight supported treadmill training. Lower extremity braces available today cannot provide the patient the experience of typical movement patterns. Body weight supported treadmill training conducted manually by therapists is very time intensive and costly. A gait training system based on a pair of identical gait generation and mechanical timing mechanism currently under development will be presented. Due to its closed-loop kinematics and low degree of freedom, this system is much safer to use and allows simpler operation, which helps to increase the duration of training at low cost. With active and passive modes in various actuation schemes, it could enhance gait retraining and orthotic intervention in stroke and other patients in the home and community settings.

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