Study of body weight shifting on robotic assisted gait rehabilitation with NaTUre-gaits

Therapist assisted body weight supported gait rehabilitation was introduced about 20 years ago. Subsequently, several robotic systems have been introduced for assisted body weight supported gait rehabilitation. However, pelvic assistance is not commonly found in those robotic systems. Lacking of pelvic assistance has several disadvantages. The most obvious disadvantage is the inability to promote body weight shifting during the gait rehabilitation. This work presents a pelvic assistance mechanism design to provide pelvic motion assistance during gait rehabilitation. The mechanism is a module found on NaTUre-gaits, a robotic system that provides gait rehabilitation in the context of over ground walking. The methodology of processing the pelvic motion for playback on the proposed pelvic assistance mechanism is discussed. The pelvic assistance mechanism is tested on human and ground reaction force was recorded for analysis of body weight shifting with/without pelvic motion assistance. It is found that the ground reaction force during robotic assisted walking is significantly affected due to the intervention of the robotic system. Future work is suggested for further study on other potential factors, which could have contributed to the change of the ground reaction force.