A preliminary study of the effects of gait training using powered gait orthosis for paraplegics: Aspects of gait function, fat mass, and bone mass

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine whether gait training using powered gait orthosis (PGO) improved gait function in paraplegics following spinal cord injury (SCI) and whether it suppressed related complications. Three complete SCI patients were used as case studies and put through four months of the gait training. The parameters of gait function—namely, velocity, step length, and cadence—were evaluated by three-dimensional motion analysis. The body fat mass (BFM) and the bone mineral density (BMD) of the femur were also measured. Velocity, cadence and step length were observed to significantly improve (p = 0.026, 0.039, 0.013, respectively) after four months of PGO gait training; furthermore, there were increments in all the subjects. BFM also significantly decreased (p = 0.004), but there was no significant change in body weight (p = 0.072), although a decrease was observed in all the subjects. Moreover, no significant change in BMD was observed (p = 0.221), although there was an increment in all the subjects. These results showed that gait training using PGO contributed to not only improving gait function in SCI patients but also suppressing increase in body fat mass and bone loss.