Physiotherapy students' perspectives on the use and implementation of exoskeletons as a rehabilitative technology in clinical settings.

PURPOSE: Wearable lower body robotic exoskeletons are an emerging technology used in gait rehabilitation to facilitate task-specific overground walking. Despite their proposed utility as a rehabilitation intervention, exoskeletons have not been widely implemented into clinical practice by physiotherapists. This study aims to inform future development of exoskeleton technology through the exploration of physiotherapy student perspectives on the use of the H2 robotic exoskeleton and the implementation of exoskeletons as a therapeutic technology in neurological gait rehabilitation. METHODS: A qualitative descriptive study, including fifteen physiotherapy students, was conducted using three equally sized focus groups. A collaborative data analysis process was employed using the DEPICT model. RESULTS: Five themes were identified during data analysis: developing evidence-informed practice, clinical considerations for exoskeleton use, resource demands, device-specific challenges for implementation, and future development. The results suggest there are several barriers limiting novel clinicians' future use of exoskeletons. CONCLUSION: This study highlights current challenges surrounding exoskeleton implementation into clinical practice and provides direction for future exoskeleton development.Implications for rehabilitationPhysiotherapy students view exoskeletons as a potentially valuable rehabilitation tool once perceived limitations are addressed.This study encourages collaboration between physiotherapists and biomedical engineers for future exoskeleton development.More research is needed to inform treatment parameters and appropriate client criteria to guide exoskeleton use for gait rehabilitation.

Conformationally Programmable Chiral Foldamers with Compact and Extended Domains Controlled by Monomer Structure.

Foldamers are an important class of abiotic macromolecules, with potential therapeutic applications in the disruption of protein-protein interactions. The majority adopt a single conformational motif such as a helix. A class of foldamer is now introduced where the choice of heterocycle within each monomer, coupled with a strong conformation-determining dipole repulsion effect, allows both helical and extended conformations to be selected. Combining these monomers into hetero-oligomers enables highly controlled exploration of conformational space and projection of side-chains along multiple vectors. The foldamers were rapidly constructed via an iterative deprotection-cross-coupling sequence, and their solid- and solution-phase conformations were analysed by X-ray crystallography and NMR and CD spectroscopy. These molecules may find applications in protein surface recognition where the interface does not involve canonical peptide secondary structures.