'Navigaitor' Helps Patients Walk Again( Recently Patented Rehabilitation Devi...),Health

Recently Patented Rehabilitation Device Enhances Freedom of Motion

NEW YORK, June 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Severe stroke victims and other acutely ill rehabilitation patients are learning to correct their unsteady and unsafe gait sooner and without the fear of falling by using a new therapeutic device that allows them more freedom of motion to walk again.

"The device, called Navigaitor, helps patients who are unstable or too weak to walk without fear of falls and injury and without depending on several physical therapists for support," said inventor Avital Fast, MD, Chairman of Rehabilitation Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

"The computer-driven device holds up the patient with a standard harness attached via a cable to a sensor on a sturdy, overhead frame made of steel beams. It physically supports, responds to and follows the patient as he walks safely in all directions -- forwards, backwards, sideways and up and down inclines. Other rehabilitation devices do not provide this degree of freedom of motion," Dr. Fast said.

"Unlike traditional parallel bars and treadmills, the patients' hands are free so it gives them a feeling of independence and confidence and the ability to recover more quickly. It differs from other harness systems by its extreme range of motion," said Dr. Fast.

The Navigaitor has helped a severe stroke patient with no strength in her left arm and leg to walk up an incline in five sessions, versus weeks. It has helped an elderly man with advanced idiopathic myositis, a musculature disease, to lift his legs in just a few sessions. It is being used to help patients with Parkinson's disease and Guillain-Barre syndrome. The Navigaitor can adapt to the ne
'/>"/>