AI Can Help Patients Recover Ability to Stand and Walk

Artificial intelligence software combined with a robotic harness could help spinal injury and stroke patients walk again. Rehabilitation programs for spinal cord injuries or strokes usually have patients walk on treadmills at a steady pace while harnesses support their weight to varying degrees. In the new study, researchers sought to develop a system that better mimicked the conditions that people might experience during everyday life, where they would have to move in more than one direction and vary their gaits. "The idea is to provide the most appropriate environment for patients to be active during training," says study co-author Grégoire Courtine, a neuroscientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne. "The goal of this rehabilitation is to have patients repeat natural activities for an extended amount of time." The scientists developed a robotic harness that uses cables to control the amount of upward and forward force that patients feel while also permitting them to walk forwards, backwards, and side to side.