Oxygen costs using a reciprocating gait orthosis in a paraplegic (T9) patient with a bilateral below-knee amputation: case report.

The Reciprocating Gait Orthosis (RGO) is a useful aid to ambulation for patients with paraplegia. Its use has been described previously though not in conjunction with limb prostheses. We report here the energy costs of ambulation of a patient, disabled by paraplegia at T9 and bilateral below-knee amputations, walking at her preferred rate using an RGO while gas exchange was measured by the Douglas bag method. Oxygen uptake (VO2) rose from 0.198 1 min-1 at rest to 0.582 1 min-1 in the last minute of exercise, representing a VO2 of 14.3 ml kg-1 min-1. During the fourth minute of ambulation, energy consumption was 30.44 J kg-1 s-1 with an energy cost of 4.17 J kg-1 m-1 at a velocity of 0.13 m s-1, Ambulation with this combination of disability is possible with the aid of limb prostheses and an RGO though it is slow and the energy expenditure as consumption per second and cost per metre are high.