Orthoses for Spinal Cord Injury Patients

Abstract

There are some limitations for patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) when walking with assistive devices. Heavy energy expenditure and walking high loads on the upper limb joints are two main reasons of high rejection rate of orthosis by these patients. Many devices have been designed to enable people with paraplegia to ambulate in an upright position as a solution of these limitations such as mechanical orthoses, hybrid orthoses and powered orthoses. All these devices are designed to solve the problem of standing and walking, but there are some other important notes, which should be considered. For example, the size and weight of external orthoses, donning and doffing, cumbersome-ness and independency for using are very important.