5. Technology for Standing up and Balance Training in Rehabilitation of People with Neuromuscular Disorders

People with neuromuscular disorders often suffer for gait and balance problems. Most of them are unable to stand up. Recent technologies do not specifically address these problems but offer an excellent tool for expanding possibilities and accelerate rehabilitation process. In this chapter we present virtual reality supported balance training, a haptic floor as an add-on for enhanced balance training and a postural response assessment and progressing from sit-to-stand with controlled active support. Experimental studies have been carried out with our developed novelties in healthy and neurologically impaired persons in order to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach. The haptic floor causes postural strategy changes when adding visual feedback, while the virtual reality balance training appeared to be also clinically effective in the small scale study. On the other hand the sit-to-stand trainer enables adjustable training conditions and facilitates the subject’s voluntary activity. The device can also mimic the natural like standing up. All technological novelties have been tested in the preliminary case and proof-of-concept studies in the clinical environment.