[Purpose] The few studies conducted on subacute stroke patients have focused only on gait function improvement. This study therefore aimed to confirm the effect of balance training with additional motor imagery on balance and gait improvement in subacute stroke patients. [Subjects and Methods] Participants were divided into an experimental or control group. The experimental group received balan...

It has been demonstrated that automated locomotor training can improve walking capabilities in spinal cord-injured subjects but its effectiveness on brain damaged patients has not been well established. A possible explanation of the discordant results on the efficacy of robotic training in patients with cerebral lesions could be that these patients, besides stimulation of physiological motor pa...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effects of whole-body vibration (WBV) training in individuals after stroke. DESIGN A double-blind randomized controlled study with assessments pre- and posttraining. SETTING A university hospital rehabilitation department. PARTICIPANTS Participants (N=31; mean age ± SD, 62±7 y; 6-101 mo poststroke) were randomized to an intervention group or a control group. IN...

Restoring mobility and rehabilitation of gait are high priorities for rehabilitation of neurological conditions. Cueing using metronomic rhythmic sensory stimulation has been shown to improve gait, but most versions of this approach have used auditory and visual cues. In contrast, we propose the development of a prototype wearable system for rhythmic cueing based on haptics. The main aim of thi...

Rehabilitation practice following amputation uses gait training to improve ambulation and reduce adverse effects of overloading the musculoskeletal system [1]. These patients exhibit compensatory movement patterns, which are difficult to treat, and are prone to misidentification through observation. Quantitative biomechanics provides a combination of variables that identify movement compensatio...

BACKGROUND One of the most significant challenges for patients who survive a stroke is relearning basic motor tasks such as walking. The goal of this study was to evaluate whether training on a treadmill with visual biofeedback improves gait symmetry, as well as spatiotemporal and kinematic gait parameters, in stroke patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS Thirty patients in the chronic phase after a st...

Background. Approximately 35,000 strokes occur annually in adults below the age of 40, and there is disappointingly little data describing their responses to rehabilitation. The purpose of this analysis was to determine the effects of Poststroke Optimization of Walking using Explosive Resistance (POWER) training in young (<40 years) and older (>60 years) adults and to describe relationships bet...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is a rare neurodegenerative disease clinically characterized by prominent axial extrapyramidal motor symptoms with frequent falls. Over the last years the introduction of robotic technologies to recover lower limb function has been greatly employed in the rehabilitative practice. This observational trial is aimed at investigating the c...

For initial gait training with the paraplegic patient, a lower extremity telescoping orthosis has been developed. This brace eliminates the time-consuming fabrication, considerable weight, and cumbersome use of conventional knee-ankle-foot orthoses and is easily adjustable to a wide range of patients. Particularly during the early phase of rehabilitation, this brace offers significant advantage...

BACKGROUND Robotics and related technologies are realizing their promise to improve the delivery of rehabilitation therapy but the mechanism by which they enhance recovery is still unknown. The electromechanical-driven gait orthosis Lokomat has demonstrated its utility for gait rehabilitation after stroke. AIM To test the efficacy of Lokomat in gait retraining and to investigate the neurophys...