What do you have when you combine the Gait Trainer 3 with the NxStep Unweighing System?
THE BIODEX GAIT TRAINING SYSTEM
What do you have when you combine the Gait Trainer 3 with the NxStep Unweighing System?
THE BIODEX GAIT TRAINING SYSTEM
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Most inpatient and outpatient PT facilities first encounter a patient with Parkinson’s disease only after a series of falls – often with serious physical and emotional consequences. Despite its resemblance to an ordinary treadmill, the Biodex Gait Trainer 3 differs in ways that illustrate its specialized rehabilitation design for neurologically impaired patients including an instrumented deck that yields audio cueing and visual biofeedback and objective documentation. |
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Treadmill Training “One example of neural plasticity is the improvement seen in locomotion of patients with stroke or spinal cord injury through partial body weight supported treadmill training. This rapidly developing form of therapy is based on two fundamental observations. First, that the spinal cord of all vertebrates, including man, contains neuronal circuitry that encoded the locomotor pattern, that can be activated by stimulation at supraspinal, suprasegmental, or segmental levels or even by intrathecal drug administration. The activation of locomotor circuitry does not therefore require momentto-moment control of individual muscles by the brain.
The second observation was that repeated activation of the central pattern generating circuit by treadmill training could result in long lasting enhancement of locomotor output. In human trials, this resulted in improved locomotion months and even years after training was discontinued.”
Excerpt from: The Role of Neural Plasticity in Neurorehabilitation |
VA Hospital Study* Supports the Concept of the Biodex Unweighing System
“If the system does not allow for vertical movements, gait is markedly distorted. The subject may still be able to move on the treadmill, since the walking surface is moving below him, but this unnatural gait is not the goal of therapy.”
SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS:
- Support up to 40% of patient’s body weight
- Allow for 5.5 cm of vertical movement to permit normal gait
- Report reliably to ensure the correct degree of unloading
- Enable easy adjustment to the amount of body weight support as the subject improves or fatigues during a training exercise
* VA Hospital Study: Source: Wilson M, Qureshy H, Protas E, Holmes A, Krouskop T, Sherwood A.: Equipment Specifications for Supported Treadmill Ambulation Training, J of Rehab, Rehab and Development
Biodex Medical Systems