Development of a novel gait rehabilitation system by integrating functional electrical stimulation and a split belt treadmill for hemiparetic patients after stroke

Nowadays, an increasing number of people with stroke are suffering considerably from a loss of physical mobility. Various traditional interventions have been developed to restore survivors´ normal motor function following a stroke, but their effects are considerably limited. Many of these techniques require physical therapist´s observation, specifically designed preparatory exercises and direct control of the lower limbs´ position. Therefore, we propose a novel automatic gait training system for gait rehabilitation of hemiparetic patients. It integrates a split belt treadmill with a functional electrical stimulation (FES) device, which is used to improve gait quality by delivering electrical stimuli to the muscles. The delivery of the stimulus from the FES device is triggered automatically during gait cycle. As subjects walk on the separated treadmill, the gait phases are estimated by an algorithm that observes variation in the current values of the treadmill motors. Finally, we have preliminarily tested the feasibility of the proposed method through experiments on simulated hemiparetic subjects, by comparing with experimental results using force plates.