Abstract

BACKGROUND

During the adults’ robotic-assisted gait training systems have rapidly gained widespread acceptance among rehabilitation specialists as a promising gait training paradigm in dysfunction, the validity and reliability for the children’s robotic-assisted gait training system has not been well established.
 

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the validity and test-retest reliability of the innovative exoskeletal Walkbot-K system which is designed to help the active development and learning of fundamental locomotor skills in children with locomotor impairments.
 

METHODS

The real-time motion analysis system was used concurrently to compare the sagittal kinematic angular displacement data with that of the Walkbot-K system as a reference standard measure.
 

RESULTS

Neuromechanical data obtained from kinematic measurement produced an excellent validity (R2 =0.889). The test-retest reliability for kinematic knee angle data showed a remarkable consistency (r = 0.999 – 1.000).
 

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides the first compelling evidence of the children’s robotic gait assisted Walkbot-K system’s validity and reliability, indicating that the system is a highly valid, and reliable robotic-assisted gait training system to evaluate and treat locomotor dysfunction in children.
 
 
 
Keywords: Robotic-assisted gait training, locomotor dysfunction, cerebral palsy, validity, reliability