The Efficacy of State of the Art Overground Gait Rehabilitation Robotics: A Bird's Eye View

To date, rehabilitation robotics has come a long way effectively aiding the rehabilitation process of the patients suffering from paraplegia or hemiplegia due to spinal cord injury (SCI) or stroke respectively, through partial or even full functional recovery of the affected limb. The increased therapeutic outcome primarily results from a combination of increased patient independence and as well as reduced physical burden on the therapist. Especially for the case of gait rehabilitation following SCI or stroke, the rehab robots have the potential to significantly increase the independence of the patient during the rehabilitation process without the patient's safety being compromised. An intensive gait-oriented rehabilitation therapy is often effective irrespective of the type of rehabilitation paradigm. However, eventually overground gait training, in comparison with body-weight supported treadmill training (BWSTT), has the potential of higher therapeutic outcome due its associated biomechanics being very close to that of the natural gait. Recognizing the apparent superiority of the overground gait training paradigms, a through literature survey on all the major overground robotic gait rehabilitation approaches was carried out and is presented in this paper. The survey includes an in-depth comparative study amongst these robotic approaches in terms of gait rehabilitation efficacy.