Locomotion Synchronization and Gait Performance While Walking With an Overground Body Weight Support System

Rehabilitation robotics offers new alternatives to patients and therapists to efficiently support walking training using Body Weight Support (BWS) systems. Automating the locomotion of overground BWS systems is one of the feasible approaches to free therapists from manual operation. However, the effect of locomotion control strategies of BWS system on participant’s gait performance have not been studied sufficiently. For this reason, in this paper we introduced locomotion synchronization between a participant, a therapist, and a BWS system as control criteria, and investigated its effect on participant’s gait performance during walking with an overground BWS system. In the experiment, four healthy participants walked with a BWS system under different BWS conditions, and with/without wearing orthosis which simulates asymmetric gait of actual patients. As the result, it was observed a significant relationship between locomotion synchronization and participants’ gait performance, such as walking speed and step time.Clinical relevance - Controlling an overground BWS system’s locomotion in synchronizing with the participant’s gait has the potential to facilitate the effect of gait rehabilitation