Development of an Advanced Early Rehabilitation Training System for Postural Control Using a Tilting Bed

We propose a new early rehabilitation training system for postural control using a tilting bed and a force plate. The conventional rehabilitation systems for postural control cannot be applied to the patients lying in bed because the rehabilitation training using those systems is possible only when the patient can stand up by himself or herself. Moreover, there has not existed any device that could provide the sense of balance or the sensation of walking to the patients in bed. By using a tilting bed, a visual display, and a force plate, we have developed a new rehabilitation training system for balance control of the patients in bed providing sense of balance and the sensation of walking to the patient. Through the experiments with real people, we verified the effectiveness of the new early rehabilitation training system. The results showed that this system is an effective system for the early rehabilitation training and that our system might be useful as clinical equipment.