A performance evaluation of overground gait training with a mobile body weight support system using wearable sensors

Overground gait training under body weight support (BWS) for patients who suffer from neurological injuries has been proven practical in recovering from walking ability. Conventionally, skilled therapists or additional robots are required to assist the patient’s body weight and pelvis movement, making the rehabilitation process physically and economically burdensome. We investigate if a BWS walker using only two actuators can support the user’s body weight and simultaneously protect/assist the transverse pelvis rotation, improving natural gait with minimal motion compensation. In this paper, a BWS strategy called transverse pelvis rotation support (TPRS) is proposed to enable the BWS system to generate cable tension in the forward direction, as a purpose to support transverse pelvis rotation in addition to our previously proposed static or variable BWS. Wearable sensory devices, including instrumented shoes and harness, were developed to provide real-time ground reaction force and pelvis rotation signals simultaneously. Ten non-disabled participants were unloaded with 0% ~ 15% BWS under four different controls. Vertical ground reaction force, transverse pelvis kinematics, and user experience were compared using proposed controls. One-Way repeated measures ANOVA analysis assessed if control strategies generally affect the performance. All proposed controls enable the walker to support part of the user’s body weight. SBWS-TPRS and VBWS-TPRS control enable users to achieve a significantly improved pelvic motion and prolonged single support phase than pure static BWS or variable BWS, although users perceive a higher workload under them. The proposed BWS controls show the potential to become a complementary method in gait rehabilitation