Review: Robot Devices for Gait Rehabilitation

Abstract

The main motivation of gait rehabilitation is to help a patient recovering from injury, illness or disease, to recover some locomotor abilities in order to promote as much independence as possible in activities of daily living tasks, and to assist the patient in compensating for deficits that cannot be treated medically. However, the amount of hands-on therapy that patients can receive is limited, as economic pressures are inherent in the health care system. Therefore, worldwide efforts are being made to automate locomotor training. Robotic devices has the potential to make therapy more affordable and thus more available for more patients and for more time. This article reviews the most important characteristics and features of the current robot devices for gait rehabilitation, both in clinical use and in the phase of research.

References

• Saunders, J. B. , Inman, V. T. , & Eberhart, H. D. 1953. The major determinants in normal and pathological gait. Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, 35A, 543-558.
• Henry FM: Specificity vs. generality in learning motor skill. In Classical Studies on Physical Activity. Edited by Brown RC and Kenyon GS. Englewood Cliffs, N. J. , Prentice-Hall; 1968:331-340.
• Edgerton VR, de Leon RD, Tillakaratne N, Recktenwald MR, Hodgson JA, Roy RR: Use-dependent plasticity in spinal stepping and standing. Advances in Neurology 1997, 72:233-247.
• Miller EW, Quinn ME, Seddon PG. Body weight support treadmill and overground ambulation training for two patients with chronic disability secondary to stroke. Phys Ther. 2002;82:53–61.
• Visintin M, Barbeau H. The effects of body weight support on the locomotor pattern of spastic paretic patients. Can J Neurol Sci. 1989;16:315–325.
• Grillner S. Interaction between central and peripheral mechanisms in the control of locomotion. Prog Brain Res. 1979;50:227–235.
• Barbeau H, Rossignol S. Recovery of locomotion after chronic spinalization in the adult cat. Brain Res. 1987;412(1):84–95.
• Hesse, S. H. , Bertelt, C. B. , Schaffrin, A. S. , Malezic, M. M. , & Mauritz, K. M. (October 1994), Restoration of gait in non-ambulatory hemiparetic patients by treadmill training with partial body weight support, Arch. Phys. Med. Rehabil. 75, 1087–1093.
• Wernig, A. W. , Nanassy, A. N. & Muller, A. M. (1999), Laufband (treadmill) therapy in incomplete paraplegia and tetraplegia, J. Neurotrauma 16, 719–726.
• Visintin, M. V. , Barbeau, H. B, Bitensky, N. B, & Mayo, N. M. (1998), Using a new approach to retrain gait in stroke patients through body weight support and treadmill training, Stroke 29,1122–1128.
• Hassid, E. H. , Rose, D. R. , Commisarow, J. C. , Guttry, M. G. & Dobkin, B. D. (1997), Improved gait symmetry in hemiparetic stroke patients induced during body weight supported treadmill stepping, J. Neurol. Rehabil. 11, 21–26.
• Stauffer Yves, Mohamed Bouri, Reymond Clavel, Yves Allemand and Roland Brodard2 (2010). A Novel Verticalized Reeducation Device for Spinal Cord Injuries: the WalkTrainer, from Design to Clinical Trials, Robotics 2010 Current and Future Challenges, Houssem Abdellatif (Ed. ), ISBN: 978-953-7619-78-7, InTech, Available from: http://www. intechopen. com/books/robotics-2010-current-and-future-challenges/a-novel-verticalized-reeducation-device-for-spinal-cord-injuries.
• A. Goffer, "Gait-locomotor apparatus," US patent number 7 153 242, 2006.
• Ekso [online]. Available: www. eksobionics. com
• S. Hesse and D. Uhlenbrock, "A mechanized gait trainer for restoration of gait," Journal of rehabilitation research and development, vol. 37, no. 6,pp. 701-708, 2000.
• H. Schmidt, S. Hesse, R. Bernhardt and J. Krüger, . HapticWalker. A Novel Haptic Foot Device. , ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, Vol. 2, No. 2, April 2005, Pages 166. 180.
• Jungwon Yoon, Bondhan Novandy, Chul-Ho Yoon, and Ki-Jong Park, "A 6-DOF Gait Rehabilitation Robot with Upper- and Lower-Limb Connections that Allows Walking Velocity Updates on Various Terrains", IEEE Transactions on Mechatronics. 2010
• Meinders M, Gitter A, Czerniecki JM. The role of ankle plantar flexor muscle work during walking. Scand J Rehabil Med. 1998;30(1):39–46.
• Colombo G. , Joerg M. , Schreier R. , Dietz V. , Treadmill training of paraplegic patients using a robotic orthosis, J. Rehabil. Res. Dev. 17 (2000) 35–42.
• S. Freivogel, D. Schmalohr, and J. Mehrholz, "Improved walking ability and reduced therapeutic stress with an electromechanical gait device," Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, vol. 41, no. 9, pp. 734–739, 2009.
• G. R. West, "Powered gait orthosis and method of utilizing same," Patent number 6 689 075, 2004.
• Walkbot [online] Available: http://www. walkbot. co. kr
• 31. J. F. Veneman, R. Kruidhof, Edsko E. G. Hekman, R. Ekkelenkamp, Edwin H. F. Van Asseldonk, and Herman van der Kooij, . Design and Evaluation of the LOPES Exoskeleton Robot for Interactive Gait Rehabilitation. , IEEE Transactions on Neural systems and rehabilitation engineering, vol. 15, no. 3, september 2007.
• C. J. Walsh, D. Paluska, K. Pasch, W. Grand, A. Valiente, and H. Herr. "Development of a lightweight, underactuated exoskeleton for loadcarrying augmentation", Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pages 3485–3491, 2006.
• Aguirre-Ollinger, G. , Colgate, J. E. , Peshkin, M. , Goswami, A. 2007, 'Active-Impedance Control of a Lower-Limb Assistive Exoskeleton', 2007 IEEE 10th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics, The Netherlands, June 2007 in Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE 10th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics, ed Bart Driessen, Just L. Herder, Gert Jan Gelderblom, IEEE, USA, pp. 188-195.
• Seireg A, Grundman JG. Design of a multitask exoskeletal walking device for paraplegics. In: Ghista DN, ed. Biomechanics of Medical Devices. New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc. ;1981:569–639.
• Miyamoto H, Israel I, Miyamoto H, Mori S, Sano A, Sakurai Y. Approach to a powered orthosis for paralyzed lower limbs . In: ICAR 85 ; 1985 . p . 451-8
• Vukobratovic M. , Hristic D. , Stojiljkovic Z. Development of active anthropomorphic exoskeletons. Medical and biological engineering, January 1974, Volume 12, Issue 1, pp 66-80.
• Aoyagi D, Ichinose WE, Harkema SJ, Reinkensmeyer DJ, Bobrow JE,"A robot and control algorithm that can synchronously assist in naturalistic motion during body weight supported gait training following neurologic injury," IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 15(3):387-400, 2007.
• Natasa Koceska, Saso Koceski, Pierluigi Beomonte Zobel and Francesco Durante (2011). Gait Training using Pneumatically Actuated Robot System, Advances in Robot Navigation, Alejandra Barrera (Ed. ), ISBN: 978-953-307-346-0, InTech, Available from: http://www. intechopen. com/books/advances-in-robot-navigation/gait-training-using-pneumatically-actuated-robot-system
• Werning A, Muller S. Laufband locomotion with body weight support improved walking in persons with severe spinal cord injuries[J]. Paraplegia, 1992, 30(4): 229 -238.
• Frey M, Colombo G, Vaglio M, et al. A novel mechatronic body weight support system[J]. IEEE Trans on Neural Syst and Rehab Eng, 2006, 14(3): 311 -321.
• Pietrusinski M. , Cajigas I. , Mizikacioglu Y. , Goldsmith M. , Bonato P. and Mavroidis C. , "Gait Rehabilitation Therapy Using Robot Generated Force Fields Applied at the Pelvis," Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE Haptics Conference, Waltham, MA, March 25-26, 2010, 401-407.
• Ikuta, K. and Nokata, M. Safety evaluation method of design and control for human-care robots. Int. J. Robot. Res. , 2003, 22, 281–297.
• Reinkensmeyer D, Wynne J, Harkema S. "A robotic tool for studying locomotor adaptation and rehabilitation", 2002; Second Joint Meeting of the IEEE EMBS and BMES.
• Sai K. Banala, Suni K. Agrawal and John P. Scholz, "Active Leg Exoskeleton (ALEX) for Gait Rehabilitation of Motor-Impaired Patients", Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE 10th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics, June 12-15, Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

Index Terms

Keywords