A Cable-driven Exoskeleton with Personalized Assistance Improves the Gait Metrics of People in Subacute Stroke

Most stroke survivors have mobility deficits and show a pathological gait pattern. Seeking to enhance the gait performance among this population, we have developed a hybrid cable-driven lower limb exoskeleton (called SEAExo ). This study aimed to determine the effects of SEAExo with personalized ass...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on neural systems and rehabilitation engineering 2023-01, Vol.31, p.1-1
Main Authors: Zhong, Bin, Shen, Mei, Liu, Haowen, Zhao, Yijun, Qian, Qiuyang, Wang, Wei, Yu, Haoyong, Zhang, Mingming
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ankle
Assistance
Contact angle
Customization
Exoskeleton
Exoskeletons
Feet
Foot
Gait
gait metric
gait symmetry
Hip
Knee
Legged locomotion
Measurement
Muscles
Performance evaluation
Rehabilitation
Robots
Stroke
Symmetry
Walking
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Summary:Most stroke survivors have mobility deficits and show a pathological gait pattern. Seeking to enhance the gait performance among this population, we have developed a hybrid cable-driven lower limb exoskeleton (called SEAExo ). This study aimed to determine the effects of SEAExo with personalized assistance on immediate changes in gait performance of people after stroke. Gait metrics (i.e., the foot contact angle, knee flexion peak, temporal gait symmetry indices) and muscle activities were the primary outcomes to evaluate the assistive performance. Seven subacute stroke survivors participated and completed the experiment with three comparison sessions, i.e., walking without SEAExo (served as baseline) and without/with personalized assistance, at their preferred walking speeds. Compared to the baseline, we observed increases in the foot contact angle and knee flexion peak by 70.1% ( p < 0.05) and 60.0% ( p < 0.05) with personalized assistance. Personalized assistance contributed to the improvements in temporal gait symmetry of more impaired participants ( p < 0.05), and it led to a 22.8% and 51.3% ( p < 0.05) reduction in the muscle activities of ankle flexor muscles. These results demonstrate that SEAExo with personalized assistance has the potential to enhance post-stroke gait rehabilitation in real-world clinical settings.
ISSN:1534-4320
1558-0210
DOI:10.1109/TNSRE.2023.3281409