Passive therapeutic arm for pelvis support during FES supported gait treadmill training - a case study

The paper presents a case study where a novel passive therapeutic arm for pelvis support is introduced to the clinical treadmill training of incomplete spinal cord injured (SCI) patients using a functional electrical stimulation (FES) to gain certain locomotor functions. The FES gait reeducation on treadmill applied automatic triggering and intensity control in relation to the swing quality performance. In the case study an incomplete SCI subject (Th-10, chronic) participated. Clinical procedure with classical treadmill training lasted for a week followed by a combined FES and passive therapeutic arm treadmill training. Additionally clinical test, 9min. and 10m walk were carried out. The outcomes suggest that simultaneous pelvis control and FES motor augmentation requiring subject's active cooperation may gain the therapeutic effect of the treadmill training.