A Gait Rehabilitation and Training System based on Task Specific Repetitive Approach

Practice, effort and specificity have been proved as the major principles for gait rehabilitation. The best way to improve performance of a motor task is to execute that specific motor task again and again. To assure the consistency of a task specific repetitive gait rehabilitation training with accuracy, from both the patient and therapist ends for a long training session, automated gait trainer can be a solution for providing a patient having paretic or artificial leg, with a natural gait-like movement. This paper describes the design and implementation of a gait trajectory guiding device based on two automated foot-boards which move following a computer simulated patient-specific walking trajectory. Replication of a true walking pattern, robust and compact mechanical design and acting in harmony with the patient´s successive improvement were the main concerns in developing this device. An elaborate gait-database collected from various sources has been used to determine patient specific gait trajectory. Along with the guided foot panels, a body weight suspension system has been implemented for supporting the partial weight of the patient depending on feedbacks of the load sensors mounted on each foot-board. The main consideration of the software interface was to make sure a good graphical representation of continuous feedback-data from the device and patient history of consecutive training sessions.