Clinical Application of Flexible Lower Limb Exoskeleton in Neurorehabilitation

Jincheng College of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China

^* Corresponding author: cn0030@nmjc.edu

Abstract

The number of patients with neurological diseases has been continuously increasing worldwide. Among them, stroke and spinal cord injury have become the main causes of long-term disability, leading to neurological disorders. Lower limb functional disorders caused by nerve injury seriously affect the quality of life of patients. Rehabilitation exoskeletons have emerged as a new type of assistive tool and have attracted widespread attention in the field of stroke rehabilitation due to their unique advantages. As a new type of exoskeleton robot that has emerged in recent years, flexible lower limb robots can effectively solve the problems of large volume and weight, poor compliance, and excessive constraints of traditional rigid exoskeleton robots, and have become one of the important directions in the field of robot-assisted rehabilitation. This article systematically reviews the clinical application research of flexible lower limb exoskeletons in the field of neurological rehabilitation, and summarizes the progress in the clinical efficacy evaluation of their application in the rehabilitation of stroke, spinal cord injury and other diseases. Studies have shown that this device can significantly improve lower limb motor function, gait stability and activities of daily living by assisting patients in early weight-bearing walking and promoting neural plasticity. However, there are still problems such as inconsistent evaluation standards and insufficient long-term efficacy tracking. This article summarizes and analyzes the existing research results of flexible exoskeleton robots to provide a reference basis for subsequent clinical applications and technical optimization.