5. Discussion
stroke, gait dysfunction, limb motor dysfunction, poststroke, subacute stroke, abnormal muscle
STROKE
Rehabilitation robots integrate a variety of technologies and show the characteristics of interdisciplinary areas, mainly used to provide locomotor assistance and rehabilitation treatment for the aged and patients with limb motor dysfunction [Gait of poststroke usually presents an asymmetrical pattern, with decreased motor function and shortened stride length of the affected side. At the same time, the stance time of the affected side is relatively shortened, while that of the unaffected side is prolonged. Such changes in spatiotemporal parameters lead to the decline of balance function and affect the walking speed of stroke patients [In terms of symmetry, the improvement of the experimental group was better than that of the control group, which may be because the BWS system of the robot can reduce the load on the affected lower extremity of the patient, so that the patient could shift the center of gravity to the affected side more easily and walk symmetrically on the robot. The change of symmetry represents the change of patients' ability to control their gait patterns. Jeannine et al. [The improvement in kinematics of the experimental group was better than that of the control group, which was consistent with our original expectation. The launch of physiological gait refers to the flexion of the hip at the initial stage of the swing phase to accelerate the forward swing of the lower limb [In conclusion, we believe that the improvement of RAGT for patients with subacute stroke is more focused on the performance of gait pattern, such as correcting postural asymmetry, guiding the affected joints to move in the right directions during walking, and rectifying abnormal muscle activation patterns. The significant differences in spatiotemporal parameters and kinematics demonstrated the potential advantages of RAGT.There are some limitations to this study. First, it was a small sample size study; it is possible that observations with larger sample sizes will identify more certain results. Second, with the experimental group in the process of intervention, the degree of body weight support is as the intervention process gradually reduced, so it is difficult to determine the effects of the different degrees of body weight support on RAGT; excessive body weight supports may affect peripheral information feedback, leading to difficulties of robot gait pattern input; further research should be focused on investigating RAGT effect under different degrees of body weight support. In addition, the intervention period of this study was 4 weeks, and there was no follow-up, so the long-term effects of RAGT on walking ability after stroke could not be determined. Therefore, future studies should address these limitations and recruit a large number of patients to analyze the effects of RAGT on gait dysfunction.