KineAssist: design and development of a robotic overground gait and balance therapy device.

Background And Purpose: Balance and mobility training consists of activities that carry a high risk for falling. The purpose of this article is to describe a novel robotic system for allowing challenging, yet safe, balance and mobility training in persons at high risk for falls.

Method: With no initial preconceptions of what device we would build, a user-needs analysis led us to focus on increasing the level of challenge to a patient's ability to maintain balance during gait training and also on maintaining direct involvement of a physical therapist (rather than attempting robotic replacement).