Heart rate and oxygen demand of powered exoskeleton-assisted walking in persons with paraplegia.

Unlabelled: Historically, persons with paralysis have limited options for overground ambulation. Recently, powered exoskeletons have become available, which are systems that translate the user's body movements to activate motors to move the lower limbs through a predetermined gait pattern. As part of an ongoing clinical study (NCT01454570), eight nonambulatory persons with paraplegia were trained to ambulate with a powered exoskeleton.

Vertical ground reaction force-based analysis of powered exoskeleton-assisted walking in persons with motor-complete paraplegia.

Objective: To use vertical ground reaction force (vGRF) to show the magnitude and pattern of mechanical loading in persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) during powered exoskeleton-assisted walking.

Research Design: A cross-sectional study was performed to analyze vGRF during powered exoskeleton-assisted walking (ReWalk™: Argo Medical Technologies, Inc, Marlborough, MA, USA) compared with vGRF of able-bodied gait.

Setting: Veterans Affairs Medical Center.