Functional Outcome of Neurologic-Controlled HAL-Exoskeletal Neurorehabilitation in Chronic Spinal Cord Injury: A Pilot With One Year Treatment and Variable Treatment Frequency

Study Design:Longitudinal prospective study.Objectives:Whether 1-year HAL-BWSTT of chronic spinal cord injured patients can improve independent ambulated mobility further as a function of training frequency, after an initial 3-month training period.Methods:Eight patients with chronic SCI were enrolled. They initially received full standard physical therapy and neurorehabilitation in the acute/subacute posttrauma phase. During this trial, all patients first underwent a daily (5 per week) HAL-BWSTT for 12 weeks. Subsequently, these patients performed a 40-week HAL-BWSTT with a training session frequency of either 1 or 3 to 5 sessions per week. The patients’ functional status including HAL-associated treadmill-walking time, -distance, and -speed with additional analysis of gait pattern, and their independent (without wearing the robot suit) functional mobility improvements, were assessed using the 10-Meter-Walk Test (10MWT), Timed-Up-and-Go Test (TUG) and 6-Minute-Walk Test (6MinWT) on admission, at 6 weeks,...