title: Development of gait training system powered by pneumatic actuator like human musculoskeletal system.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to develop a body weight support gait training system for stroke and spinal cord injury (SCI) patient. This system consists of an orthosis powered by pneumatic McKibben actuators and a piece of equipment of body weight support. The attachment of powered orthosis can be fit to individual subjects with different body size. This powered orthosis is driven by pneumatic McKibben actuators arranged as a pair of agonistic and antagonistic bi-articular muscle models and two pairs of agonistic and antagonistic mono-articular muscle models like the human musculoskeletal system. The body weight support equipment suspends the subject's body in a wire harness, with the body weight is supported continuously by a counterweight. The powered orthosis is attached to the body weight support equipment by a parallel linkage, and its movement of powered orthosis is limited at the sagittal plane. The weight of the powered orthosis is compensated by a parallel linkage with a gas-spring. In this paper, we report the detailed mechanics of this body weight support gait training system and the results of several experiments for evaluating the system.
authors.affiliation: Department of Bio-science and Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology, SIT, Saitama, Japan. yamashin@se.shibaura-it.ac.jp
authors.forename: Shin-ichiroh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yamamoto
authors.forename: Yoshiyuki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shibata
authors.forename: Shingo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Imai
authors.forename: Tatsuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nobutomo
authors.forename: Tasuku
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Miyoshi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001835:Body Weight; D004867:Equipment Design; D005081:Exercise Therapy / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D005684:Gait / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009989:Orthotic Devices; D013119:Spinal Cord Injuries / Q000534:rehabilitation; D000071939:Stroke Rehabilitation; D055815:Young Adult