Locomotor Training in Individuals With Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury. A Pilot Study

In the researchers' words

Background: In Switzerland, about 6000 individuals live with the consequences of a spinal cord injury (Brinkhof et al, 2016). One of the major goals after an incomplete spinal cord injury (iSCI) is to regain walking function. To this end, different approaches are used in rehabilitation such as treadmill-based, robotic-assisted (exoskeleton or end-effector) and conventional gait training. According to current literature, the superiority of one of these approaches remains unclear (Mehrholz, Harvey, Thomas, and Elsner, 2017); In the research on gait rehabilitation after iSCI, recent randomized clinical trials (RCTs) found no statistical differences between conventional gait training and robotic-assisted gait training. Nevertheless, according to the comparison of effect sizes obtained from these training, these trials suggested that the conventional training approach leads to larger improvements in gait capacity when compared to robotic-assisted therapy (Field-Fote and Roach, 2011; Nooijen, Ter Hoeve, and Field-Fote, 2009). Therefore, these trials highly recommended further research considering these aspects. However, in clinical settings, the implementation of such systematic and intense training sessions remains challenging. The present study aims to test the hypothesis that conventional training might have larger effect sizes on gait capacity and to evaluate the feasibility of…