Robotic Treadmill Training Helps Retrain Brain, Improves Walking for Some Partially Paralyzed People

‘Increased activation in parts of the brain reflected improved ability to regain and retrain neurologic function in a recent study of spinal cord victims. Cerebellum activation appeared to be related to how much the patient improved measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) done before and after Lokomat training. Accurate sensory input is required to relearn walking; Lokomat provides effective stimulation to enable optimal communication between the brain and legs – essentially retraining the brain and allowing patients to relearn to walk.  

Lokomat provides highly accurate sensory input and with time causes the brain and spinal cord neural circuits to reorganize to teach the patient to walk; explained study author Dr Patricia Winchester Director Spinal Cord Injury University Texas South Western Medical Centre Dallas.

Promising studies are also being conducted with a number of other neurodegenerative disorders including stroke, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and motor neuron disorders’. Source: UT Southwestern Medical Center [Neurorehabilitation and Repair 2006].

‘Robotic powered gait rehabilitation improved in excess of 80% of wheelchair bound patients suffering incomplete spinal cord injury; participants of the program gained significant functional returns including functional walking ability after robotic training’. Daniel Ferris PhD University Michigan. Published Spinal Cord Inj Rehabil 2005: 11(2): 34-49;