Preliminary evaluation of an objective assessment approach from session data in exoskeleton-assisted gait rehabilitation after SCI

Exoskeleton-assisted gait rehabilitation is a promising complement to traditional motion rehabilitation programs for afflictions such as stroke or spinal cord injury. However, some challenges persist that hinder the translation of this approach to the clinical practice. One of these aspects is the objective assessment of patients’ progress from information collected during exoskeleton-assisted therapy sessions with minimal hardware setup. In order to carry out an objective assessment with the data collected during the sessions, in this work: (1) we implement and compute a set of metrics (Harmonic Ratio, Joint Trajectory Correlation, and Intralimb Coordination) from data provided by the exoskeleton and two inertial motion units (IMUs) while subjects walked during their rehabilitation sessions, (2) we evaluate the capacity of the metrics to discriminate between the different patients’ physical conditions, and (3) assess the correspondence of the patient evaluations using the mentioned metrics and traditional clinical scores. Our results show that Intralimb Coordination has the greatest capacity to discriminate between different physical states of the patients and presents the best correlation with their clinical assessment.Clinical relevance— This work could guide clinicians and researchers to formulate a more objective assessment of progress of patients who have experienced a spinal cord in- jury using data collected during exoskeleton-assisted therapy sessions.