Enhanced gait-related improvements after therapist- versus robotic-assisted locomotor training in subjects with chronic stroke: a randomized controlled study.

Background And Purpose: Locomotor training (LT) using a treadmill can improve walking ability over conventional rehabilitation in individuals with hemiparesis, although the personnel requirements often necessary to provide LT may limit its application. Robotic devices that provide consistent symmetrical assistance have been developed to facilitate LT, although their effectiveness in improving locomotor ability has not been well established.

Methods: Forty-eight ambulatory chronic stroke survivors stratified by severity of locomotor deficits completed a randomized controlled study on the effects of robotic- versus therapist-assisted LT.

Augmenting clinical evaluation of hemiparetic arm movement with a laboratory-based quantitative measurement of kinematics as a function of limb loading.

Background: Kinematic and kinetic measurements used in laboratory settings can quantify upper extremity movement impairment following stroke, but their relationship to clinical methods of evaluating movement impairment is unclear.

Objective: To test whether the Arm Coordination Training 3D device (ACT3D) could provide a repeatable quantitative measurement of range of motion during upper extremity reaching along a range of functional levels of loads on the arm and correlate with clinical assessments of arm impairment.

Methods: Work area during reaching along clockwise and counterclockwise hand paths was measured under 9 limb-loading conditions ranging from no load to twice the weight of the upper extremity in 11 individuals with chronic hemiparetic stroke on 2 separate occasions.