International Medical Case Reports Journal, 2021 · DOI: https://doi.org/10.2147/IMCRJ.S306558 · Published: January 1, 2021
The hybrid assistive limb (HAL) is a wearable exoskeleton that helps people walk by using sensors to detect the wearer’s muscle signals. This report is about a man with an incomplete spinal cord injury who had trouble walking. After using the HAL robot for gait training, he showed improvement in his walking ability. The HAL robot may help people with spinal cord injuries improve their walking ability, even if they have been injured for a long time.
HAL can be used as a rehabilitation tool to improve walking ability in patients with chronic incomplete tetraplegic SCI.
Active participation in robot-driven gait therapy using HAL could lead to possible gains in motor learning.
HAL motion assistive technologies could contribute to improvement in patient walking ability by facilitating proper joint motion and loading and unloading muscle movement.