Center of mass adaptations and its interaction between the trunk and lower-extremity during exoskeleton walking

Abstract

The goal of this study is to dynamically assess the posture and balance of individuals with spinal cord injury and able-bodied controls during robotic-assisted gait, using the EksoGT™ and ReWalk™, by examining their 3-D whole body, trunk and lower-extremity CoM excursions and their sagittal trunk lean angle during baseline and post-training (>100 hours). At baseline, there were strong differences (p<;0.05) between the devices where CoM excursions, root-mean-squared-errors between the trunk and lower-extremity CoMs and a trend for significance in trunk lean angle were much greater in the ReWalk™ than EksoGT™. These differences further increased post-training, particularly in the EksoGT™.