Mokhtar Arazpour

By Mokhtar Arazpour, Monireh Ahmadi Bani, Mohammad Ebrahim Mousavi, Mahmood Bahramizadeh and Mohammad Ali Mardani

There are some limitations for patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) when walking with assistive devices. Heavy energy expenditure and walking high loads on the upper limb joints are two main reasons of high rejection rate of orthosis by these patients . Many devices have been designed to enable people with paraplegia to ambulate in an upright position as a solution of these limitations such as mechanical orthoses, hybrid orthoses and powered orthoses. All these devices are designed to solve the problem of standing and walking, but there are some other important notes, which should be considered. For example, the size and weight of external orthoses, donning and doffing, cumbersomeness and independency for using are very important.

Part of the book: Recovery of Motor Function Following Spinal Cord Injury

By Mokhtar Arazpour, Guive Sharifi, Mohammad Ebrahim Mousavi and Maryam Maleki

Gait training has an important role in rehabilitation of standing and walking in spinal cord injury (SCI) patients. There were different types of gait training in these subjects. Both the body weight support treadmill training and robotic-assisted and robotic exoskeleton are effective and secure methods for gait training and improving the energy demand and metabolic cost in SCI patients in different level of injury. The powered exoskeletons can provide patients with SCI the ability to walk with the lowest energy consumption. The powered exoskeleton’s energy consumption and speed of walking depend on the training duration. Based on different types of gait training methods, training time, and other affected parameters, the aim of this chapter was to evaluate the role of gait training in recovery of standing and walking in SCI patients.

Part of the book: Essentials of Spinal Cord Injury Medicine

By Mokhtar Arazpour

Part of the book: Prosthetics and Orthotics