Cadence Biomedical, maker of the Kickstart device, which helps people with neurological conditions recover and walk again, announced its first peer-reviewed publication. The study, published in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation International, documents the therapeutic effect of using Kickstart, a wearable rehabilitation device that uses a sping-based technology to enable proper walking. Cadence co-founder and COO Brian Glaister was the lead author of the study in collaboration with Nancy Byl, PhD PT, Professor Emeritus at the University of California San Francisco as senior author.
The clinical case series describes the outcomes when patients with chronic impairments (e.g. stroke and spinal cord impairment) integrated the Kickstart both during PT-supervised gait training in the clinic and at home. Each case served as their own control, since all participants had recently plateaued in progress with conventional therapy and were exercising and walking at home for 8-12 weeks prior to beginning the case study training protocol.
In addition to improvements in walking speed and distance, participants demonstrated gains in gait quality and independent function that were maintained even when Kickstart was no longer used. The study found that in each case, walking speed and endurance progressed for each patient, with improvement of walking distance ranging from 1.8 to five times farther as a result of using Kickstart. All patients were able to walk an average of two times faster than at baseline.
The study is the first peer-reviewed evidence demonstrating Kickstart may play an important role in improving walking independence for patients with neurological injuries.
Cadence Biomedical
