Does treadmill training with Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) impact the quality of life? A first case series in the United States

Abstract

Our study details the first experience in a larger series regarding the effects of HAL-assisted treadmill training on quality of life. Whereas five out of six patients showed improvements in mobility scores, only one patient showed improvement of life quality at 6 months follow-up. Life quality is influenced by a multitude of factors and lager randomized trials are needed to assess the effect of HAL-assisted training on quality of life. Implications for Rehabilitation Treadmill training with HAL is safe and feasible for patients with neurologic disorders Treadmill training with HAL improved the functional mobility Improvements in the quality of life were unverifiable.

Self-perceived functioning and disability after randomized conventional and electromechanically-assisted gait training in subacute stroke: A 6 months follow-up

“…At present, several studies have explored the use of HAL for gait training in different stages after stroke [77][78][79][80][81][82][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100][101]. The studies differ in terms of aim, design, duration of intervention, diagnosis, setting, and patient characteristics as well as allocation, randomization, blinding and outcome measures.…”

“…no control group is applied) [77-79, 81, 84-88, 90, 91, 94, 95, 99, 101], one is a case study [98], five studies have a control group (but did not use strict randomization) [82,89,92,97,100] and two are randomized controlled trials [80,93,96]. The studies include one [98,99] to 53 [86] patients with stroke who performed HAL training. The total number of HAL sessions range from 1 [87] to 31 [88] and with a total mean of approximately 11 sessions, using HAL 2-3 times per week with durations of ≥20 minutes (net walking time) per session.…”

“…In these previous studies, data describing self-perceived aspects of the training are scarce as well as data related to self-perceived activity performance and participation in everyday life. One case-series, including one participant with stroke, explores self-perceived health assessed with the EuroQol Questionnaire (EQ-5D) and self-perceived mobility assessed with Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS), after HAL training [99]. They report no change in quality of life but a minor improvement less than one standarddeviation in self-perceived mobility, for that individual.…”

Influence of body weight-supported treadmill training with voluntary-driven exoskeleton on the quality of life of persons with chronic spinal cord injury: a pilot study

“…Additionally, our recent study found that the degree of improvement throughout VDE-BWSTT for persons with chronic SCI depended on the baseline walking ability [15]. In contrast, to our knowledge, no study and only very few case reports demonstrated the effects of VDE-BWSTT on the QOL of persons with chronic SCI [16,17]. Cruciger et al .…”

“…[16] reported that two persons with chronic SCI had improved not only walking ability but also neuropathic pain and health-related QOL with VDE-BWSTT, whereas Yilmaz et al . [17] reported no remarkable effect in one person with SCI. A clinical study with large number of patients is needed to assess the effects of VDW-BWSTT on QOL.…”