Deans' stroke musings: MIT-Skywalker: considerations on the Design of a Body Weight Support System

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Thursday, September 7, 2017

MIT-Skywalker: considerations on the Design of a Body Weight Support System

Once again researchers not keeping up with research in their field. There are water and air pressure treadmills out there. YOU are going to have to test them on your own since your doctor will never find out about them.

underwater treadmill

Air pressure treadmill instantly sheds 80% of your weight

https://jneuroengrehab.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12984-017-0302-6

Rogério Sales GonçalvesEmail author and
Hermano Igo Krebs

Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation201714:88

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12984-017-0302-6

Received: 4 October 2016

Accepted: 30 August 2017

Published: 6 September 2017

Abstract

Background

To provide body weight support during walking and balance training, one can employ two distinct embodiments: support through a harness hanging from an overhead system or support through a saddle/seat type. This paper presents a comparison of these two approaches. Ultimately, this comparison determined our selection of the body weight support system employed in the MIT-Skywalker, a robotic device developed for the rehabilitation/habilitation of gait and balance after a neurological injury.

Method

Here we will summarize our results with eight healthy subjects walking on the treadmill without any support, with 30% unloading supported by a harness hanging from an overhead system, and with a saddle/seat-like support system. We compared the center of mass as well as vertical and mediolateral trunk displacements across different walking speeds and support.

Results

The bicycle/saddle system had the highest values for the mediolateral inclination, while the overhead harness body weight support showed the lowest values at all speeds. The differences were statistically significant.

Conclusion

We selected the bicycle/saddle system for the MIT-Skywalker. It allows faster don-and-doff, better centers the patient to the split treadmill, and allows all forms of training. The overhead harness body weight support might be adequate for rhythmic walking training but limits any potential for balance training.

Deans' stroke musings