A design of gait training equipment for monoplegia patients

Abstract

In this paper, a system design about gait training equipment for monoplegia patients and aged people is described. The conventional gait training for the monoplegia patients is that the patient steps himself/herself with leaning to the parallel guide bar on both side of footpath or together with helping by holding a patient's arms by a therapist. However, this method provides a patient with subjective gait training methods rather than objective ways and it shows the incorrectness of posture under gait training. The new training equipment has been needed to be developed for gait disorder patients, monoplegia patients and aged people. The new gait training equipment proposed in this paper is divided into four main units, gait phase detecting unit, lower panel controlling unit, lower limb pulling and releasing unit and additional supplementary unit for safety of patients. The operation of the developed gait training equipment is very stable and it may increase the effect of gait rehabilitation training instead of conventional gait training method. © 2008 Springer-Verlag.