Effects of Body Weight-Support Treadmill Training in Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury: A Critical Review

Problem statement: The present study reviewed the efficacy of body-weight support treadmill training in patients with incomplete spinal cord injury. Approach: We developed a computer-supported search strategy for finding studies in the main data bases: Pubmed/Medline, ISI Web of Knowledge and Scielo. We also developed a manual search withing all electronically references found. The search terms gait, locomotor training, spinal cord injury, SCI, body-weight support treadmill training were used. Only papers published in English and conducted from 1991 up to 2012 were preferentially reviewed. The inclusion criteria were: (a) studies using body-weight support treadmill training in patients with iSCI; (b) studies with iSCI patients classified as ASIA C or D. The exclusion criteria were: (a) studies comparing the BWSTT with manual and robotic techniques and associated BWSTT with the use of drugs. Results: After a careful electronic search in the data bases, forty seven articles were found. Studies with patients of ASIA A and/or B classification, studies comparing the BWSTT with manual and robotic techniques and studies associating BWSTT with the use of drugs were excluded of the study. Thus, only 21 articles were selected. Conclusion: iSCI is a severe neurological condition that causes serious compromises, such as gait disability. The wide use of BWSTT seems to be an effective, safe and reliable method for functional rehabilitation of gait. Even though, there is no sufficient scientific evidence to confirm that the BWSTT is superior to the other rehabilitation techniques.