Journal
ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY
Volume 34, Issue 4, Pages 437-443Publisher
TAYLOR & FRANCIS INC
DOI: 10.1080/10400435.2020.1862361
Keywords
gait treatment; hybrid assistive limb; stroke
Categories
Funding
- Industrial Disease Clinical Research Grants of the Ministry of Health Labour and Welfare, Japan [14060101-01, 18H01403]
- AMED [19hk0102065h0001]
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [18H01403] Funding Source: KAKEN
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A novel staged HAL treatment protocol was developed for patients with acute stroke, showing improvements in gait speed, step length, and functional ambulation category. RPG-HAL also resulted in higher Barthel Index scores in patients.
Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) is a wearable human assistant cyborg-type robot that helps lower-leg movement based on bioelectrical signals detected from the voluntary movement of the person wearing it. In this study, we developed a novel staged HAL treatment protocol for patients with acute stroke. The Regain Program for Gait with HAL (RPG-HAL) was formulated in four steps, based on the severity of limb paralysis. Twenty-one patients with acute stroke received a combination treatment of RPG-HAL and conventional rehabilitation. The feasibility and safety of RPG-HAL were evaluated based on changes in physical function and activities of daily living (ADL). RPG-HAL yielded improvement in gait speed, cadence, step length, and functional ambulation category (FAC). The effect size was >0.8 in all measurements. FAC (1.90) and Barthel Index (BI) (1.92) exhibited the highest scores. Twelve out of 14 patients with FAC 0 before RPG-HAL reached the upper FAC. Thus, earlier intervention using RPG-HAL as improving physical function, ADL, and gait ability in patients with stroke.
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