Immediate effects of an ankle assist device on gait recovery after total hip arthroplasty.
Daisuke Oguro, Yoichiro Konno, Yuji Honda and 4 others
Ankle-assist device training produced a greater within-session increase in gait speed at postoperative week 2 than standard therapy (0.03 vs −0.01 m/s).
The effect is small, from a non-randomized, unblinded study of 57 and 39 patients.
Key findings
1The primary outcome — change in gait speed at postoperative week 2 — was significantly greater in the ankle-assist device group (0.03 ± 0.08 m/s) than in the control group (−0.01 ± 0.08 m/s).
2At postoperative week 1, both groups showed modest within-session increases in gait speed, stride length, and cadence, with no significant between-group differences.
3Stride length and cadence also improved more in the ankle-assist device group than the control group at postoperative week 2, supporting a broader gait-efficiency effect rather than speed alone.
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What it does not show
Groups were assigned by the calendar period of assessment, not by randomisation, so differences in patient mix between the two phases cannot be ruled out. The study was not blinded; patients and therapists knew which group was receiving the device, which may have influenced performance. Only immediate within-session effects were measured (before and after a single 10–15-minute session); there is no data on whether the gains persist or accumulate over weeks of training. The sample was moderate (57 and 39) and the study did not adjust for sex, bone strength, or comorbidities. The between-group difference in gait speed at week 2 is 0.03 m/s, well below the 0.1 m/s threshold the authors themselves cite as clinically meaningful.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest and state the study received no specific grants from any funding agency. The device used (CoCoroe) is manufactured by Yaskawa Electric Corporation, but no financial relationship between the authors and the manufacturer is disclosed.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the week-2 gait-speed result as proof that the ankle-assist device accelerates hip-recovery gait. The groups were assigned by calendar period rather than randomised, the study was unblinded, the within-session gain was 0.03 m/s (well below the 0.1 m/s the authors cite as clinically meaningful), and the control group's week-2 change was negative (−0.01 m/s), which may reflect natural variation in a small, unblinded sample rather than a true device effect.
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