Mechanisms for improving walking speed after longitudinal powered robotic exoskeleton training for individuals with spinal cord injury

The goal of this study was to establish stride-parameter gait models correlated to speed on individuals with chronic SCI and able-bodied controls walking with a powered robotic exoskeleton (EksoGT (TM)). Longitudinal exoskeleton training (>100 hours) across eight individuals with SCI resulted in a 30% increase in walking speed. A simple linear regression between step length, stride length for given speed were very tightly correlated along a line of best fit (p <.001). The temporal parameters of stride time, stance time and double support time depicted a non-linear exponentially decaying relationship for given walking speed. The research findings indicate that although longitudinal exoskeleton training reduces the temporal parameters, increases in spatial parameters are only marginal.