Effects of a soft robotic exosuit on the quality and speed of overground walking depends on walking ability after stroke.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Soft robotic exosuits can provide partial dorsiflexor and plantarflexor support in parallel with paretic muscles to improve poststroke walking capacity. Previous results indicate that baseline walking ability may impact a user's ability to leverage the exosuit assistance, while the effects on continuous walking, walking stability, and muscle slacking have not been evaluated. Here we evaluated the effects of a portable ankle exosuit during continuous comfortable overground walking in 19 individuals with chronic hemiparesis. We also compared two speed-based subgroups (threshold: 0.93 m/s) to address poststroke heterogeneity.

Methods

We refined a previously developed portable lightweight soft exosuit to support continuous overground walking. We compared five minutes

SUBMITTER: Sloot LH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10474762 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature