A Closer Look at Gait Assessment with AlterG Stride Smart Technology
August 16, 2018
AlterG TreadmillAthletic TrainingAthleticsInjury PreventionPhysical TherapyRehabilitationSenior MobilityStride SmartVideo Monitoring
To deliver the best patient care, clinicians need to stay up to date with the technology revolutionizing physical therapy. In our previous post, we took a look at Differential Air Pressure (DAP), the patented technology on which the AlterG® Anti-Gravity Treadmill™ is based.
Alongside DAP, the Anti-Gravity Treadmill offers robust gait assessment tools. Physical therapists depend on gait assessment and analysis to help correct the abnormal patterns. An abnormal gait is a common occurrence resulting from injury, neurological disorders, and even disease. Yet, correcting a patient’s gait requires a skilled therapist and precision technology.
This is where AlterG Stride Smart technology comes in.
What Is Stride Smart?
At its root, Stride Smart is an integrated treadmill technology that provides clinicians with real-time gait assessment data during therapy. It is designed to help clinicians optimize rehabilitative therapy, making for shorter therapy protocols and faster recovery for patients. It records and represents data that is especially useful during gait assessment.
What Makes Stride Smart Gait Assessment Different
First and foremost, Stride Smart technology is integrated into the only Anti-Gravity Treadmill on the market. Coupled with precision unweighting technology, Stride Smart is able to capture real-time data, amplifying the rehabilitative power of AlterG® technology. While the patient watches and self-corrects gait abnormalities using video monitoring, physical therapists can simultaneously read and respond to five gait assessment Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) on the fly.
Objective, Real-Time Gait Assessment Data
Stride Smart provides clinicians with five objective data points during therapy:
- Weight-bearing symmetry
- Step length symmetry
- Stance time symmetry
- Cadence
- Pain recording
This gives clinicians clear, objective data with which to assess, adjust, and modify a patient’s progress. Since Stride Smart collects and presents patient gait data automatically, clinicians can spend more time rehabbing the patient and selecting the data most useful to their gait analysis and correction recommendations. This is true no matter the scope and severity of the injury or disorder.
Useful Reporting
In addition to in-session data monitoring, Stride Smart also provides robust gait analysis reporting capabilities. These reports can be easily saved, downloaded, and shared in PDF format.
Once the clinician ends the session on the treadmill, they can email a copy of the session report. Session reports can also be saved to a USB, if necessary. Reports include session summaries of the key metrics named above: weight-bearing symmetry; step length symmetry; stance time symmetry; cadence; and pain recording.
Shorter Recovery Times, More Efficient Clinics
In busy physical therapy clinics, there is always room to be more efficient. This includes the tools clinicians use for treating and rehabilitating patients. By leveraging real-time data, including video and reporting capabilities, Stride Smart helps physical therapists work smarter—to optimize rehab and shorten recovery cycles. Optimizing a patient’s rehab with Stride Smart has three key benefits:
- Better cost efficiency and ability to scale clinic operations
- Improved reputation and word of mouth referral
- Happier, healthier patients
The clinics that use the latest gait assessment technology and objective data—that deliver on the promise of fast and effective rehabilitation—are the clinics that thrive. More importantly, these are the clinics that constantly please their patients by delivering measurable results. This, after all, is what top-tier physical therapy is all about.
Stride Smart technology is included with the purchase of a Pro 500 or Via 400/400X Anti-Gravity Treadmill, and is available as an accessory with the M/F 320.