MIT-Skywalker: A novel environment for neural gait rehabilitation

A novel concept of rehabilitation is proposed for the recovery of walking post-stroke made possible by a novel piece of robotic hardware, the MIT Skywalker-γ prototype. Rather than prescribing motion for the patient similar to most current rehabilitation robots, we built an environment to foster self-directed movement. The concept is based upon our working model on dynamic motor primitives, prior rehabilitation results and a survey of common gait pathologies associated with stroke. Skywalker-γ was carefully developed to provide an environment in which three motor primitives can be trained in isolation or in combination to further insights into both rehabilitation and human motor control.