Within- and between-therapist agreement on personalized parameters for robot-assisted gait therapy: the challenge of adjusting robotic assistance

Abstract Background Stationary robotic gait trainers usually allow for adjustment of training parameters, including gait speed, body weight support and robotic assistance, to personalize therapy. Consequently, therapists personalize parameter settings to pursue a relevant therapy goal for each patient. Previous work has shown that the choice of parameters influences the behavior of patients. At the same time, randomized clinical trials usually do not report the applied settings and do not consider them in the interpretation of their results. The choice of adequate parameter settings therefore remains one of the major challenges that therapists face in everyday clinical practice. For therapy to be most effective, personalization should ideally result in repeatable parameter settings for repeatable therapy situations, irrespective of the therapist who adjusts the parameters. This has not yet been investigated. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the agreement of parameter settings from session to session within a therapist and between two different therapists in children and adolescents undergoing robot-assisted gait training. Methods and results Fourteen patients walked in the robotic gait trainer Lokomat on 2 days. Two therapists from a pool of 5 therapists independently personalized gait speed, bodyweight support and robotic assistance for a moderately and a vigorously intensive therapy task. There was a very high agreement within and between therapists for the parameters gait speed and bodyweight support, but a substantially lower agreement for robotic assistance. Conclusion These findings imply that therapists perform consistently at setting parameters that have a very clear and visible clinical effect (e.g. walking speed and bodyweight support). However, they have more difficulties with robotic assistance, which has a more ambiguous effect because patients may respond differently to changes. Future work should therefore focus on better understanding patient reactions to changes in robotic assistance and especially on how instructions can be employed to steer these reactions. To improve the agreement, we propose that therapists link their choice of robotic assistance to the individual therapy goals of the patients and closely guide the patients during walking with instructions

Clinical application of rehabilitation technologies in children undergoing neurorehabilitation

The application of rehabilitation technologies in children with neurological impairments appears promising as these systems can induce repetitive goal-directed movements to complement conventional treatments. Characteristics of robotic-supported and computer-assisted training are in line with principles of motor learning and include high numbers of repetitions, prolonged training durations, and online feedback about the patient’s active participation. When experienced therapists apply these technologies, they can be considered a rather safe and in combination with virtual realities a motivating supplementary approach. Therapists might have to take into account that there might be some factors that are different when applying such technologies to children with congenital versus acquired neurological lesions. Currently, clinical guidelines on how to apply such technologies are missing, and clinical evidence considering the effectiveness of such technologies has just started to commence in pediatric neurorehabilitation. Experienced therapists formulated recommendations that might be useful to those with less experience on how to apply some of these systems to train the lower and upper extremity intensively and playfully. Finally, suggestions are made on how these technologies could be integrated into the clinical path

Clinical application of robotics and technology in the restoration of walking

Robots for neurorehabilitation have been designed principally to automate repetitive labor-intensive training and to support therapists and patients during different stages of rehabilitation. Devices designed for body weight-supported treadmill training are promising task-oriented tools intended to assist in the restoration of gait. In early rehabilitation, robots provide a safe environment through the use of a suspension harness and assistance in achieving a more physiological gait pattern while promoting a high number of repetitions. In the later stages of rehabilitation, more sophisticated control strategies, virtual environment scenarios, or the possibility to address specific gait deficits by modulating different parameters extends their application. Scientific and clinical evidence for the effectiveness, safety, and tolerability of these devices exists; however documentation of their comparative advantages to conventional therapies is limited. This might be due to the lack of appropriate selection parameters of locomotor training interventions based on functional impairments. Despite this shortcoming, robotic devices are being integrated into clinical settings with promising results. Appropriate use is dependent on the clinicians’ knowledge of different robotic devices as well as the ability to utilize the devices’ technical features, thereby allowing patients to benefit from robot-aided gait training throughout the rehabilitation continuum with the ultimate goal of safe and efficient overground walking. This chapter will provide an overview on the rationales of introducing robots into the clinic and discuss their value in various neurological diagnoses. In addition, recommendations for goal setting and practice of robot-assisted training based on disease-related symptoms and functional impairment are summarized