Energy cost and psychological impact of robotic-assisted gait training in people with spinal cord injury: effect of two different types of devices

Background In the last years, there has been an intense technological development of robotic devices for gait rehabilitation in spinal cord injury (SCI) patients. The aim of the present study was to evaluate energy cost and psychological impact during a rehabilitation program with two different type...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neurological sciences 2021-08, Vol.42 (8), p.3357-3366
Main Authors: Corbianco, Silvia, Cavallini, Gabriella, Dini, Marco, Franzoni, Ferdinando, D’Avino, Carla, Gerini, Adriana, Stampacchia, Giulia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Carbon dioxide
Cognitive ability
Energy
Fitness equipment
Gait
Heart rate
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Metabolic response
Metabolism
Muscle contraction
Neurology
Neuroradiology
Neurosciences
Neurosurgery
Original Article
Oxygen consumption
Psychiatry
Rehabilitation
Robotics
Robots
Spinal cord injuries
Walking
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Summary:Background In the last years, there has been an intense technological development of robotic devices for gait rehabilitation in spinal cord injury (SCI) patients. The aim of the present study was to evaluate energy cost and psychological impact during a rehabilitation program with two different types of robotic rehabilitation systems (stationary system on a treadmill, Lokomat, and overground walking system, Ekso GT). Methods Fifteen SCI patients with different injury levels underwent robot-assisted gait training sessions, divided into 2 phases: in the first phase, all subjects completed 3 sessions both Lokomat and Ekso GT. Afterwards, participants were randomly assigned to Lokomat or the Ekso for 17 sessions. A questionnaire, investigating the subjective psychological impact (SPI) during gait training, was administered. The functional outcome measures were oxygen consumption (VO 2 ), carbon dioxide production (VCO 2 ), metabolic equivalent of task (MET), walking economy, and heart rate (HR). Results The metabolic responses (7.73 ± 1.02 mL/kg/min) and MET values (3.20 ± 1.01) during robotic overground walking resulted to be higher than those during robotic treadmill walking (3.91 ± 0.93 mL/kg/min and 1.58 ± 0.44; p  
ISSN:1590-1874
1590-3478
DOI:10.1007/s10072-020-04954-w