A newly patented gait training device, currently being used at Montefiore Medical Center, helps severe stroke victims and other acutely ill rehabilitation patients to correct their unsteady and unsafe gait sooner and without the fear of falling.

"The device, called Navigaitor, helps patients who are unstable or too weak to walk without fear of falls and injury and without depending on several physical therapists for support," said inventor Avital Fast, MD, chairman of rehabilitation medicine at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

"The computer-driven device holds up the patient with a standard harness attached via a cable to a sensor on a sturdy, overhead frame made of steel beams. It physically supports, responds to and follows the patient as he walks safely in all directions—forwards, backwards, sideways and up and down inclines. Other rehabilitation devices do not provide this degree of freedom of motion," Fast says in a statement.

"Unlike traditional parallel bars and treadmills, the patients' hands are free so it gives them a feeling of independence and confidence and the ability to recover more quickly. It differs from other harness systems by its extreme range of motion," Fast says.

The Navigaitor has helped a severe stroke patient with no strength in her left arm and leg to walk up an incline in five sessions, versus weeks. It has helped an elderly man with advanced idiopathic myositis, a musculature disease, to lift his legs in just a few sessions. It is being used to help patients with Parkinson's disease and Guillain-Barre syndrome. The Navigaitor can adapt to the needs of the individual patient and function under full weight-bearing and partial weight-bearing conditions.

A 200-square-foot frame of steel beams defines the boundaries of the therapeutic space. The frame's dimensions can be tailored to different room sizes in hospitals, nursing homes and free standing rehabilitation centers. The harness hangs from a mobile ceiling beam that crosses the width of the therapeutic space. As the patient moves, the harness cable pushes against a tilt mechanism that feeds information to a computer. The computer directs the mobile beam and harness to move with the patient inside the therapeutic space.

Along with the engineers from the University of Hartford who helped build the device, Fast is customizing the Navigaitor for Parkinson's disease patients who cannot initiate their stride. The system will be programmed to give them a slight boost to start walking. There are also plans underway to teach patients how to walk over ice and on sand and to practice therapeutic walking in a real life environment, such as a living room with couches and a TV.

[Source: Montefiore Medical Center]