Audio and Visual Biofeedback of Step Length and Step Speed
The Biodex Gait Trainer™ 3 is more than a treadmill. It is designed with an instrumented deck that issues both audio and visual real-time biofeedback to prompt patients into their correct gait pattern. Step length, step speed and right-to-left time distribution (step symmetry) are directly addressed; patient footfall is compared to desired footfall step after step, both on the 15.6″ touchscreen display in real time and documented in an easy to read histogram.
The Biodex Gait Trainer is quiet, non-intimidating and allows the therapist to get in there and treat their patients. Real goals are monitored and progress reported. Objective documentation, with comparison to age- and gender-based normative data, helps prove need and document outcomes to family, referring physicians and insurance providers.
The Biodex Gait Trainer 3, with or without the Unweighing System or FreeStep for BWSTT, is suitable for all rehabilitation pathologies. Biodex has recently published Body Weight Support Treadmill Training (BWSTT) with Transition to Over Ground Ambulation: A Clinical Guideline for the Treatment of Patients with Neurological Conditions using Biodex Unweighing System and Gait Trainer. The document classifies the neurologically involved patient, then steps the user through the various phases of recovery for profound, moderate and minimal neurological impairments
Music Therapy
Working in conjunction with The Center for Music Therapy, Austin, TX, the Gait Trainer 3 offers an integrated starter library of music therapy-informed compositions and allows music therapists to incorporate their own. The right music, the correct beats per minute (bpm) and gait repetition help reinforce neuroplasticity and get patients better, faster.
Music tempo, or beats-per minute (bpm), can be managed to influence certain gait characteristics. Walking, or gait cycle time, can be described as steps-perminute (spm). Biodex Gait Trainer 3 has the capability to control belt speed (individual’s walking speed) in units of spm (gait cycle time).
While the repetition of gait training addresses neuroplasticity, music therapyinformed compositions in the correct beats per minute (bpm) elicit the desired gait pattern. The Gait Trainer includes a starter library of compositions and enables music therapists to incorporate their own. Music can also be transferred to a patient’s personal device to reinforce learning outside the clinical setting.
