GaitAid training enables the patient to:
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Regain normal walking ability
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Reduce or eliminate "freezing"
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Reduce loss of balance significantly
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Regain confidence and improve self-esteem
The GaitAid training process improves brain function helping build healthy walking circuits. Improvements last over time even if you can’t practice walking with the device regularly.
A practice session is typically 20-30 minutes of walking daily. Patients that practice daily for two weeks have shown great improvement in their walking gait. The improvement may even last for months after such a practice routine.
As you walk while wearing the GaitAid Virtual Walker, the control unit creates enhanced sound cues and visual feedback cues in the form of black and white tile images by responding to your motion. This type of sensory feedback helps regulate the motor activity of the body, in particular, the locomotion system.
Simply put, the visual image and sound cues help create nerve signals in the motor control areas of your brain. Your brain sends these signals to your muscles. When Parkinson’s disease, MS, or some other movement disorder disease damages your brain, it can’t process these signals properly. And that’s what causes you to shuffle, freeze, or lose your balance.
By wearing the GaitAid Virtual Walker while walking, you help your brain filter out bad or “noisy” nerve signals. This process helps your brain start the process of creating new connections. Once these new connections form, your “rewired” brain helps you walk more normally.
The more you walk while wearing the Virtual Walker, the stronger these new connections become, bringing greater and longer lasting improvements.