Rehabilitation robot in primary walking pattern training for SCI patient

Abstract

Recently, attention has been focused on incomplete-type spinal cord injury to the central spine caused by pressure on parts of the white matter conducting pathway such as the pyramidal tract. In this paper, we focus on a training robot designed to assist with primary walking pattern training. The target patient of this training robot is one who is relearning the basic functions of the usual walking pattern, especially for patients with the incomplete type SCI to the central spine, who are capable of standing by themselves but are not capable of performing walking motions. From the perspective of human engineering, we monitored the operator’s actions to the robot and investigated the movement of joints of the lower extremities, the circumference of the lower extremities and the exercise intensity with the machine. The concept of the device is to provide mild training without any sudden changes in heart rate or blood pressure, which will be particularly useful for the elderly and disabled.