Robotic trunk support helps train those with SCI

Illustration showing the architecture of TruST, a robotic device invented by Columbia engineers that retrains patients with spinal cord injury to sit more stably and gain an expanded active sitting workspace.

A Columbia Engineering team has invented a robotic device — the Trunk-Support Trainer (TruST) — that can be used to assist and train people with SCI to sit more stably by improving their trunk control, and thus gain an expanded active sitting workspace without falling over or using their hands to balance. The study, published in Spinal Cord Series and Cases, is the first to measure and define the sitting workspace of patients with SCI based on their active trunk control.

TruST is a motorized-cable driven belt placed on the user’s torso to determine the postural control limits and sitting workspace area in people with SCI. It delivers forces on the torso when the user performs upper body movements beyond the postural stability limits while sitting. You can read complete details of the study HERE.