News & Events
Watch this highlighted clip to hear from Kathleen O’Donnell as she takes us through an exercise to help us understand the relationships between ankle plantarflexion, trailing limb angle, and forward propulsion in the gait cycle, and highlights why it is so important to retrain for effective propulsion symmetry in patients post-stroke.
These principles are the foundation of the ReStore Exo-Suit, which helps to train effective plantarflexion function and timing for patients undergoing clinic-based gait rehabilitation after a stroke.
You can learn more about the ReStore Exo-Suit on the ReStore product page.
This is a highlighted clip from ReWalk’s Topics in NeuroRehabilitation web series. You can watch the full episode here.
Transcript:
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So we also looked into, OK,
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if we know that propulsion is important
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and we know it’s something that we’re
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we’re sort of challenged to address
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in the clinic,
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how can we think about propulsion?
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How can that really be generated?
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And we saw from Mike Lewek in Episode 08,
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he did a really nice job of breaking down
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the two subcomponents of propulsion.
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So he specifically talked about the ankle
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plantarflexion, or the forces generated
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at the ankle to really push down
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into the ground and push the ankle
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down and drive the body forward.
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And then he also talked about the
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importance of the trailing limb angle.
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So this is the angle that your leg is
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basically behind your
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body’s center of mass.
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So, how far behind you is that leg when
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you’re doing that ankle plantarflexion?
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So we put together a quick video just
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to sort of help everybody understand
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this a little bit deeper.
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So what I’m going to have all of our
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viewers do is if you can stand up where
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you are, and what I want you to do
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is just put your hands on your hips.
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And the first thing we’re going to do
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is explore that ankle plantarflexion.
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So if you raise up onto your toes and so
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you’re plantarflexing your ankles,
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what I want you to do is feel
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the direction that your hips are moving.
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And you’re going to notice that your hips
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are just moving straight up
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because plantarflexion when your foot is
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underneath you is going to move the weight
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of the body up, but not move
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the weight of the body forward.
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So now we’re going to try this again,
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and I’m going to have you take a step
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forward with your left foot,
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and now I want you to raise up
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on the toes of your right foot.
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And now you’re going to feel that when you
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have your hands on your hips,
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your hips are actually translating
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forward as you raise up on your toes.
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So you can see that it’s not just
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the ankle plantarflexors that matter,
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but it’s also the angle that they are
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and the angle that your leg
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is with respect to your body.
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And we also heard from Lou Awad in that
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same talk about why this really matters.
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Why we care about propulsion asymmetry is
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that it really translates and correlates
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with all of these other metrics that we
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look at to really see how that affects
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that patient’s community
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ambulation and quality of life.
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And that’s really what the goal of gait
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training is, is to get somebody back
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to their highest level of function
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in their highest quality
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of life that they can achieve.
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This has been a highlighted clip
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from ReWalk’s Topics
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in NeuroRehabilitation web series.
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To watch the full episode,
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please go to the ReWalk Robotics YouTube
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page, or visit the link
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in the comments below.
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See you next time!
