Stories, news, and evidence from the field.

Since its 2020 opening, the Craig H. Neilsen Rehabilitation Hospital set out to meet the most complex neurological injuries with the most advanced technology available. In a recent interview, Randy Carson, PT, DPT, NCS, explains why Aretech technology was — and continues to be — the cornerstone of their rehabilitation gym. The decision to start with two ZeroG Gait and Balance Systems was rooted in a commitment to both patient progression and therapist safety.

Randy points to three essential advantages of ZeroG. Safety: advanced fall protection lets patients "fail safely," building the confidence to attempt difficult movements without fear. Therapist empowerment: by removing the physical burden of preventing falls, therapists can focus entirely on high-level clinical interventions rather than manual spotting. Operational efficiency: a user-friendly design gets patients set up and training in under five minutes.

After four years of success with the original ZeroG, the team integrated Aretech's ZeroG 3-Dimensional BWS System to support non-linear, "real-world" recovery. The upgrade adds 360-degree freedom for multi-directional pivots and complex obstacle courses, functional ADL practice such as navigating around furniture within a protected environment, and high-intensity training that keeps patients engaged at every stage. Together, the track-based ZeroG systems and the new ZeroG 3D ensure that every patient — regardless of where they are in recovery — has access to the best technology in the world.

When Lakeland firefighter Steve Connors woke one December morning with tingling in his hands and feet, he knew something was wrong — and told his wife to drive him straight to Tampa General Hospital. What started as inexplicable weakness rapidly became life-threatening, eventually paralyzing his entire body; he was unable to walk, eat, speak, or even breathe on his own. Doctors diagnosed Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a rare disorder in which the immune system attacks the nerves.

As part of his recovery at Tampa General's Rehabilitation Center, Steve trained on Aretech's ZeroG Gait and Balance System with an integrated treadmill. Because the harness rides an overhead track, he and his therapist had the reassurance that he was secure and couldn't fall — the confidence he needed to push his limits. As TGH physical therapist Manuel Garcia-Gaona notes, the system is fully secure and supports patients up to 400 pounds; what once took three therapists to assist now takes just one.

Through hard work and extensive physical therapy, Steve relearned how to eat and walk and is steadily rebuilding his strength. Now in outpatient rehab twice a week and a vocal advocate for the ZeroG, he has his sights set on returning to what he loves — serving as a Lakeland firefighter.

Brooks Rehabilitation was an early adopter, integrating the original ZeroG Version 1 in 2012 — at a time when robotic body-weight support systems were still a new concept in rehabilitation. ZeroG quickly became an essential part of their patients' recovery, and the numbers reflect it: the clinical team has consistently logged over 1,200 hours of ZeroG use every year.

Since 2012, Aretech's ZeroG Gait & Balance System has served as a cornerstone of Brooks Rehabilitation's neurological program in Jacksonville, FL. After a decade of rigorous clinical use with the original system, the team moved into its next chapter by upgrading to ZeroG Version 3 in 2021 — a natural evolution for a group that had spent years building its practice and expertise around Aretech's technology.

With thousands of hours of clinical experience and more than a decade of history, Brooks continues to push the boundaries of recovery — pairing a tenured commitment to patient care with Aretech's evolving technology to maintain a premier standard of rehabilitation.

When Maya Rodriguez was 13, black spots began affecting her vision. Soon after came balance issues and unexpected weakness in her leg that caused her to fall. Her symptoms were traced to multiple sclerosis; three years later, she was also diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

By 17, standing, walking, and joining in activities had become difficult, and a fear of falling left her using a transport wheelchair at home and in the community. At Barrow Neurological Institute's Movement Disorders Clinic in Phoenix, she began working with Whitney McGinn, PT, DPT, MSCS.

"I wanted to improve her confidence and endurance with walking in the home and eventually community distances, with an emphasis on dynamic balance."Whitney McGinn, PT, DPT, MSCS — Barrow Neurological Institute

Whitney used Aretech's ZeroG Gait and Balance System as one piece of Maya's intensive therapy. Because ZeroG protects against falling, Maya could safely attempt unsupported activities on her own.

"Being able to walk, learn how to function, and gain strength without the worry and fear gave me so much confidence, because I knew I wasn't going to fall."Maya Rodriguez

In her first session, with dynamic body-weight support set to 25%, Maya walked 172 feet. Over the following sessions the support was adjusted between 7% and 20% depending on the day, and her distance climbed steadily — by her fifth session she walked 1,406 feet, over 1,200 feet more than her first. Near the end of her time at Barrow, she was walking outside on uneven terrain with walking poles. Advanced work included Facilitation mode to push her speed and cadence, and TRiP perturbations to challenge her balance while standing, walking, turning, and seated.

Now 21, Maya completed an Aesthetics program at the East Valley Institute of Technology — where she was voted student of the year — and looks forward to becoming a practicing esthetician.

The staff at the Boys Town National Research Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska describe how Aretech's ZeroG Gait & Balance System is helping their patients at the new Center for Human Performance Optimization.

ZeroG is being used to let patients try activities they aren't confident attempting on their own, in a safe environment with dynamic body-weight support. The robot tracks each patient's movements as they walk with no resistance, for a natural training environment.

"ZeroG gives patients the opportunity to explore movements that they otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to do."Brad Corr, PT, DPT — Boys Town National Research Hospital

A rare stroke in the spinal cord left Vigan, a Lincoln bodybuilder, relearning how to move. His recovery has been a steady climb — from a wheelchair to a walker, then to crutches, and now to a single cane — built on an intensive, technology-driven therapy program.

Alongside aquatic therapy and robotic tools like the Lokomat, Vigan trains in Aretech's ZeroG harness, which lets him walk overground without holding on for support. With dynamic body-weight support and fall protection backing every repetition, he can push through demanding work — walking, high knees, and the lunges he loved long before his injury. “I used to love lunges before the accident,” he says.

For an athlete used to giving everything, the mindset hasn't changed. “You get what you put in, so I'm always invested 100%,” Vigan says. Now cleared to return to the gym, he keeps building strength and confidence — a testament to how far overground gait training can carry a determined patient.

Inside United Cerebral Palsy of Central Arizona in Phoenix, physical therapist Atalie Holem preps seven-year-old Alexandra Anderson to work with the clinic's newest robot. "It allows us to practice balance and walking with the support of a dynamic trolley," Holem says — and for Alexandra, it's giving her the best chance of one day walking on her own.

At 15 months old, Alexandra was diagnosed with Pitt Hopkins Syndrome, a single missing gene on her eighteenth chromosome. She is nonverbal and faces a wide range of physical limitations, and she has never taken an independent first step. Once she's hooked into the harness, though, she can put her walking muscles to work: the ZeroG rides an overhead track, moves with her, and provides exactly as much support as she needs while quietly logging her body-weight support, the falls it prevents, and the distance she covers — all of it progress her team can document.

After a half-hour session, the harness comes off — and Alexandra, her brain and body still firing on memory, takes assisted steps holding Atalie's hand.

"Getting to see her make those steps in the gait trainer, and then when it's off of her, being able to take those assisted steps just holding Atalie's hand — I mean, that is just pure magic."Nicole — Alexandra's mom

The system is the only one of its kind in the Southwest, made possible by a $300,000 investment from donors including the Arizona Diamondbacks Foundation, the Arizona Board of Visitors, and Thunderbird Charities. And the hope it carries is backed by evidence: research shows children who receive robotic gait training alongside conventional physical therapy have a higher chance of gaining independent mobility than those who receive conventional therapy alone.

Jewel enrolled in an intensive therapy program on a referral from his doctor and began seeing results almost immediately.

"He walked maybe 15–20 feet tops before having to sit down, because he felt his legs were going to give out."Melissa Dygulski, PT, DPT, NCS — recalling Jewel's first evaluation

After a few weeks of training in Aretech's ZeroG Gait and Balance System, Jewel was able to walk close to 800 feet in a single session — far beyond the goal he had set for the day.

Now the golf course is back in sight, and Jewel has set himself a new goal: to be back out with his buddies this summer. As he puts it, "the score doesn't make a difference." He just wants to play.

At St. Luke's Rehabilitation in Spokane, Washington, 21-year-old Cameron Tweedy was relearning to walk — transitioning from a walker to crutches and managing roughly 400 to 600 steps per session. The hardest part wasn't the effort; it was the fear. Without full sensation in the lower half of his body, every step carried the worry of falling.

That changed when he began training in Aretech's ZeroG Gait and Balance System, which rides a U-shaped ceiling track and suspends him in a harness, providing dynamic body-weight support and fall protection. Within a week or two, Cameron exceeded 1,500 steps in a single session.

"I struggled more with walking with that fear of falling… When I started using the ZeroG, that's when my progression started getting better, because the fear of falling went away."Cameron Tweedy

His care team saw the difference, too. By letting patients feel their own loss of balance without the risk of a real fall, ZeroG frees clinicians to focus on better treatment. As St. Luke's Jake Allstot noted, in their first stretch with the system the team worked with 32 patients and prevented 250 falls — "freedom of movement… with safety at the forefront."

A standout center fielder for the Northeast Lauderdale Lady Trojans, Alixus Hearn wasn't about to spend her life sitting down. On October 2, 2017, a car wreck ejected her from her vehicle and left her paralyzed from the waist down. Doctors told her she might never walk again — but Hearn chose a vigorous rehab program at Methodist Rehabilitation Center in Jackson, Mississippi, and threw herself into it.

Among the technologies that made the difference was Aretech's ZeroG Gait and Balance System. Mounted to an overhead track, it harnessed her upright and let her practice a wide range of movements — walking, balance, sit-to-stand, even stairs — all without the risk of falling. Her comeback came in steps: baby steps that November, then a walker, and eventually a cane she used from February to May. Therapy that once filled three days a week is now down to one.

"Having my mom and dad with me, they kept the positive energy around me. I just put everything in and went head first. I wasn't sitting down until I got better."Alixus Hearn

Backed by her parents and a community that rallied behind the slogan "13 Strong" — for the No. 13 she wore on the field — Alixus is back on her feet and doing what she does best: setting goals and checking them off.

In August 2020, Luke Louden — a 32-year-old dairyman from Whauphill in Dumfries and Galloway — lost control of his car near his home and suffered an incomplete spinal injury that left him paralysed. He knew instantly. Doctors told him he had only a slim chance of ever regaining movement in his legs, and for more than two years he watched his hope drain away. "I was really fit and active, so to lose the use of my legs was tough," he said.

That changed when Luke became the first patient in Scotland to train on the ZeroG Gait and Balance System at Glasgow's Queen Elizabeth National Spinal Injuries Unit. The robotic system fully supports him and automatically synchronises with his movements as he works with a single physiotherapist, preventing falls so he can push for more repetitions. "The ZeroG system was hard at first because my limbs didn't know what to do, but then everything became smoother," he said. "I've gone from hardly being able to move to being able to walk 20 metres nonstop at the bars. My record on the ZeroG system is 57 metres." Along the way he's had less pain, fewer spasms, better sleep, and renewed hope.

"The dream would obviously be to walk my girls down the aisle, so I'm going to keep going, to keep trying — for Anna and all my children."Luke Louden

Most real-world falls happen in motion — while walking and turning, not standing still. Yet traditional therapy often trains balance in place. TRiP (Training Responses in Postural rehabilitation) is built to close that gap.

Integrated directly into ZeroG, TRiP delivers controlled, unanticipated perturbations of varying strength and direction while a patient is walking or holding a posture. Those balance disruptions trigger the compensatory stepping and recovery reactions patients rely on outside the clinic.

Because every session runs with ZeroG's dynamic body-weight support and fall protection, clinicians can provoke a genuine loss of balance — and let the patient practice recovering from it — with no risk of a fall.