Thesis Project Form

Total or partial loss of locomotor function is one of the main consequences of spinal cord injury (SCI). Therefore, the recovery of walking ability is one of the primary goals in the rehabilitation of SCI survivors. To reach this goal, in recent years, an increasing number of clinical centers have decided to integrate their traditional rehabilitation treatments with the use of robotic exoskeletons that allow the progression of the body in space. However, there is still the need of deeply investigating the changes on walking patterns due to exoskeletons–based training and the related underlying mechanisms. Several studies have reported how intense training on these devices led to significant improvements in patients' ability to walk with exoskeletons, however, little effort has been devoted to investigate changes in the walking patterns during exoskeleton-assisted walking and even less to analyze the long-term effects of exoskeleton-assisted training during walking both with and without the exoskeleton.

The long-term goal of this project is to evaluate the effects of exoskeleton-assisted training on the walking ability of SCI individuals.
In order to reach this goal, we aim to investigate the effects of the exoskeleton assistance and mechanical structure on the walking patterns (muscle activations and spatio-temporal gait parameters) of healthy and incomplete SCI individuals assessed while walking with and without the device before, during and after an intense exoskeleton–based training.

The student(s) will learn to:
- Define, develop and test an experimental set up capable of combining different systems and techniques in order to collect synchronously kinematic and electromyographic data;
- Elaborate and analyze kinematic and electromyographic data;
- Correlate data in order to have a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon.

- NeuroLab (DIBRIS, UNIGE)
- Spinal Cord Italian Lab (Unità Spinale Unipolare, Ospedale Santa Corona, ASL2 Savonese, Pietra Ligure)