Trial reportScience translational medicine2017
A lower-extremity exoskeleton improves knee extension in children with crouch gait from cerebral palsy.
Trial report in Science translational medicine, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 69 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
69 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 181 citations in OpenAlex.
- A bibliometric analysis of cerebral palsy from 2003 to 2022.Frontiers in neurology · 2024Pooled it
- Control strategies used in lower limb exoskeletons for gait rehabilitation after brain injury: a systematic review and analysis of clinical effectiveness.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2023Pooled it
- Systematic review on wearable lower-limb exoskeletons for gait training in neuromuscular impairments.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2021Pooled it
- Effectiveness of powered exoskeleton use on gait in individuals with cerebral palsy: A systematic review.PloS one · 2021Pooled it
- Mechanically assisted walking training for walking, participation, and quality of life in children with cerebral palsy.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2020Pooled it
- A Pilot Study on the Short-Term Effects of an Electric Knee-Ankle-Foot Orthosis on Gait Performance and Physiological Cost Index in Patients With Hemiplegia: Influence of Initial Balance Ability Assessed by the Berg Balance Scale.BioMed research international · 2026Trial
- Abnormal synergistic gait mitigation in acute stroke using an innovative ankle-knee-hip interlimb humanoid robot: a preliminary randomized controlled trial.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
- Toward a hybrid exoskeleton for crouch gait in children with cerebral palsy: neuromuscular electrical stimulation for improved knee extension.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2020Trial
- Gait improvements by assisting hip movements with the robot in children with cerebral palsy: a pilot randomized controlled trial.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2020Trial
- Assessment of Gait Kinematics in the Sagittal Plane in Children with Cerebral Palsy Following Therapy with the PRODROBOT Gait Trainer.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Increasing error at targeted phase of gait facilitates motor adaptation for improving crouch gait in children with cerebral palsy.Journal of neurophysiology · 2026Article
- Center of mass feedback for joint torque control during perturbed standing: a potential generalizable control approach for balance augmentation in wearable robots.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2026Article
- Center of Mass Feedback for joint torque control: a generalizable approach for balance augmentation in wearable robots.Research square · 2026Article
- Ankle Exoskeleton Assistance Reduces Knee Contact Force During Walking in Individuals With Cerebral Palsy.IEEE transactions on neural systems and rehabilitation engineering : a publication of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society · 2026Article
- Evaluating the rehabilitative and assistive impact of the Agilik exoskeleton: a pre-post single-group study in children with cerebral palsy.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Gait Event Detection From Thigh Segment Kinematics in Children With Crouch Gait.IEEE journal of translational engineering in health and medicine · 2026Article
- Article
- Sonomyography accurately captures joint kinematics during volitional and electrically stimulated motion in healthy adults and an individual with cerebral palsy.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2025Article
- Therapeutic Benefits of Robotics and Exoskeletons for Gait and Postural Balance Among Children and Adolescents with Cerebral Palsy: An Overview of Systematic Reviews.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Compact and Foldable Hip Exoskeleton With High Torque Density Actuator for Walking and Stair-Climbing Assistance in Young and Older Adults.IEEE/ASME transactions on mechatronics : a joint publication of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society and the ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Division · 2025Article
9 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The ability to walk contributes considerably to physical health and overall well-being, particularly in children with motor disability, and is therefore prioritized as a rehabilitation goal. However, half of ambulatory children with cerebral palsy (CP), the most prevalent childhood movement disorder, cease to walk in adulthood. Robotic gait trainers have shown positive outcomes in initial studies, but these clinic-based systems are limited to short-term programs of insufficient length to maintain improved function in a lifelong disability such as CP. Sophisticated wearable exoskeletons are now available, but their utility in treating childhood movement disorders remains unknown. We evaluated an exoskeleton for the treatment of crouch (or flexed-knee) gait, one of the most debilitating pathologies in CP. We show that the exoskeleton reduced crouch in a cohort of ambulatory children with CP during overground walking. The exoskeleton was safe and well tolerated, and all children were able to walk independently with the device. Rather than guiding the lower limbs, the exoskeleton dynamically changed the posture by introducing bursts of knee extension assistance during discrete portions of the walking cycle, a perturbation that resulted in maintained or increased knee extensor muscle activity during exoskeleton use. Six of seven participants exhibited postural improvements equivalent to outcomes reported from invasive orthopedic surgery. We also demonstrate that improvements in crouch increased over the course of our multiweek exploratory trial. Together, these results provide evidence supporting the use of wearable exoskeletons as a treatment strategy to improve walking in children with CP.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.