Hocoma AG
Zurich, Switzerland

Hocoma AG has developed a driven gait orthosis to assist leg movements of persons walking on a treadmill. This device is called the Lokomat (R) and it is adjustable in size so it can be used by different sized adults.  The Lokomat was primarily built for rehabilitation of patients after stroke, brain injury, spinal cord injury or other neurological diseases who have the potential to learn to walk again. With the device, it is possible to fully assist the leg movements of gait impaired persons, even those with no voluntary control at all. The Lokomat requires only one person to supervise the training once the patient is set into the device.

The advantages of the Lokomat for rehabilitation and research are the following:

• Prolongation of treadmill training in comparison to manually assisted training. This should result in improved functional outcomes.
• Less personal requirements for administering fully-assisted treadmill training. This should reduce the costs associated with the rehabilitation.
• More physiological and reproducible gait pattern induced during the training.
• Possibility to measure patient performance in order to quantify the progress of the training.
• Measurement of gait trajectories and interactive forces to use the device for research.

URL

http://www.hocoma.ch/

Contact

Dr  Gery Colombo

Position

President

Address

Florastrasse 47
8008 Zurich
Switzerland

Phone

+41 1 380 57 37

Fax

+41 1 380 57 38

E-mail

colombo@hocoma.ch

Last Update

2/22/2003