Effectiveness of unilateral lower-limb exoskeleton robot on balance and gait recovery and neuroplasticity in patients with subacute stroke: a randomized controlled trial.
Congcong Huo, Guangjian Shao, Tiandi Chen and 8 others
PMID 39639336WHAT IT FOUND
In subacute stroke, 4 weeks of robot-assisted overground walking plus conventional rehab improved balance more than conventional rehab alone.
Both groups improved, but the robot group had higher Berg balance scores and better affected-leg gait measures.
Key findings
01At the final assessment, the robot-assisted group had higher Berg balance scores than the conventional group (p = 0.018).
02The robot-assisted group also had higher functional ambulation category and modified Barthel index scores than the conventional group at the final assessment (p = 0.010 and p = 0.042).
03Only the robot-assisted group showed significant improvement in affected-side stride length, support phase, toe-off angle, and foot strike angle after intervention.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Only 30 of the 40 recruited patients were analysed, and the paper describes the trial as a pilot study. The robot group received robot-assisted training in addition to conventional rehabilitation, so the benefit of any single component cannot be separated. There was no long-term follow-up after the 4-week intervention. fNIRS was measured only in the robot group, and four robot-group patients were excluded from fNIRS analysis because of motion artifacts. The sample was small and included both left- and right-sided lesions, so laterality-specific effects were not examined. The trial was single-blind and conducted at one rehabilitation hospital.
Declared interests
No funding or conflict-of-interest declaration appears in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the better Berg balance result as proof that the exoskeleton robot alone caused recovery. Patients also received conventional rehabilitation, only 30 of 40 recruited patients were analysed, and the study had no long-term follow-up.