Evaluation of the autonomic response in healthy subjects during treadmill training with assistance of a robot-driven gait orthosis

Effects of robot-driven gait orthosis treadmill training on the autonomic response in rehabilitation-responsive stroke and cervical spondylotic myelopathy patients

“…Individual trends were derived during the first (PRE) and last (POST) session of the robotic-assisted BWSTT protocol in ST (left panels) and CSM (right panels) patients. reduction in the inter-subject variability and by the presence of trends more similar to those observed in healthy subjects [9]; (3) individual responses to the first BWSTT rehabilitation session were variable and scattered in CSM patients except during the fastest walking phase, dominated by an exaggerated vagal modulation; (4) in CSM patients the BWSTT rehabilitation protocol was not able to reduce significantly the variability of the ANS response and restore trends more similar to those observed in healthy subjects [9] but reduced the exaggerated vagal response during the fastest walking phase.…”

“…As an important effect of the rehabilitation therapy based on robotic BWSTT, the inter-subject variability of the ANS response decreased after the last rehabilitation session. In addition, the ANS response to the rehabilitation became more homogeneous among different individuals and, in particular, the cardiovascular response in terms of vagal modulation seems to reproduce the typical course of the healthy group [9]. Indeed, the parameter 2UV%, that was found related to vagal modulation [16], significantly increased during walking phase during POST condition as it was reported in healthy subjects [9].…”

“…In addition, in [9] we demonstrated that symbolic analysis outperforms spectral analysis in assessing the ANS response to a robotic-assisted BWSTT rehabilitation session.…”

“…In a previous study [9] we showed that a traditional roboticassisted BWSTT rehabilitation session including standing, walking at different speeds and recovery induces a light but significant cardiovascular response that can be typified using short-term analysis of heart rate variability (HRV). In addition, in [9] we demonstrated that symbolic analysis outperforms spectral analysis in assessing the ANS response to a robotic-assisted BWSTT rehabilitation session.…”

“…rehabilitation-responsive subjects) to test the hypothesis of the additional improvement of the cardiovascular regulation. The assessment of the ANS response was carried out by applying symbolic analysis to short-term HRV [9].…”