I’m not sure anyone not in the team for the device can answer this fully.
However, it isn’t an ideal use case. The last I heard about it, it’s controlled by a hand unit. So, despite the “exoskeleton” part being applicable in that case (meaning it would function just fine and do its job), the control would need to be changed to fit the needs of users with poor motor function in the hands. Not that everyone with stoke affect presents exactly the same, but the hands are affected to some degree in everyone I’ve ever seen with it.
Same with things like cerebral palsy, TBI, etc that impact balance and lower limb mobility that tend to also impact fine motor control.
But it should be a matter of just adapting the controls as best as I can tell from available information online.
Again, I have no connection to rewalk, so you gotta take this with a few dozen grains of salt.
I thought about this a bit actually in my earlyish recovery, though I never did confirm my thoughts with any doctors who might know more about the mechanics I was interpreting me perceptions of.
In summary, I don’t think it would help (for those with injuries exactly identical to mine*). The problem as I constructed it in my mind, was;
A problem with my ability to interpret balance from my senses.
I could still sense all the things I could pre-injury, but the signals would travel down the wires of my body with different kinds of “noise” than my brain had learned to adapt to for the first 20+ years of my life.
A problem with my ability to control the fine-motor aspects of all my balance-affecting body parts.
The relative position and momentum of every moving and not-moving part of your body contribute to your overall “state” of balance. Now my control to each part of my body had (similar to the sensing syste’s “wires”) different levels of noise to adapt for than it has taught itself to deal with so far.
I think a system like the Exoskeleton referred to here would probably fix or at least greatly reduce the second problem, but the first problem would require, at the very least, a “processor” that could replace the thing that determines my balance from all my various senses (my brain, at least one part of it).
I’m not sure anyone not in the team for the device can answer this fully.
However, it isn’t an ideal use case. The last I heard about it, it’s controlled by a hand unit. So, despite the “exoskeleton” part being applicable in that case (meaning it would function just fine and do its job), the control would need to be changed to fit the needs of users with poor motor function in the hands. Not that everyone with stoke affect presents exactly the same, but the hands are affected to some degree in everyone I’ve ever seen with it.
Same with things like cerebral palsy, TBI, etc that impact balance and lower limb mobility that tend to also impact fine motor control.
But it should be a matter of just adapting the controls as best as I can tell from available information online.
Again, I have no connection to rewalk, so you gotta take this with a few dozen grains of salt.
Survivor of a TBI checking in.
I thought about this a bit actually in my earlyish recovery, though I never did confirm my thoughts with any doctors who might know more about the mechanics I was interpreting me perceptions of.
In summary, I don’t think it would help (for those with injuries exactly identical to mine*). The problem as I constructed it in my mind, was;
I think a system like the Exoskeleton referred to here would probably fix or at least greatly reduce the second problem, but the first problem would require, at the very least, a “processor” that could replace the thing that determines my balance from all my various senses (my brain, at least one part of it).