Rocket Website

Soldiers and VA patients feel like they are “walking on the moon” in a new military physical therapy program using an innovative anti-gravity treadmill.

This high-tech physical therapy equipment is rapidly becoming the optimal treatment protocol in the Department of Defense and VA systems to get soldiers back in action and to rehabilitate veterans. The AlterG uses an exclusive differential air pressure (DAP) technology to decrease the body weight on healing or nonfunctional joints. This DAP techology developed at NASA delivers precise control over the user’s body weight while maintaining normal balance and gait in a fall safe environment.

Retired Staff Sargent Jesse Whitmier uses the AlterG at the Palo Alto VA Medical Center and explains it like being “in a NASA lab, walking with the astronauts training for the next launch”.

This high tech treadmill in the military physical therapy at the outpatient physical therapy center at the Palo Alto VA Medical Center is the newest addition to VA physical therapy treatment protocols. This is just one of many centers that have the AlterG. A partial list of centers are listed below.

Using the AlterG after surgery allows the patient to be mobile while at the same time protects and simulates healing tissues. This type of movement would not be possible for most lower extremity post-operative patients on a regular treadmil. The control instrument panel allows the physical therapist or the patient to change the amount of up force to a point where there is no pain and movement is easy. Walking and running gait is regained which lets them resume their normal activities sooner. Other military applications include:

    * Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

    * Learning to walk with prosthetics

    * Athletic and endurance training

    * Weight control programs

It works like a regular treadmill with a large inflatable bag around it. To get started, the user pulls on a pair of specialized shorts, which creates a seal. Then, you zip into the bag and the air pressure inflates the bag. Buoyancy is created from the air pressure of the lower body and the ambient air pressure in the bag.   As a result, a person’s body weight can be acurately controlled in 1% increments from 100% of body weight down to using only 20 percent.

Other uses in patients with Parkinson’s and traumatic brain injury have had great results from implementing an AlterG treatment program. In a 2008 study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, 10 patients with Parkinson’s completed a course that focused on balance training. After eight weeks, the number of times the participants fell was reduced by more than 90%.

Patients no longer have to worry about falling because the air pressure holding them upright. This product allows patients to keep their body weight up while their legs do the work. There are no balance issues and no pain.

The AlterG is FDA and CE cleared for medical use, is made in the United States, and already used by leading DOD and VA facilities, hospitals, performance training centers, PT clinics, pro sports teams and colleges for physical therapy and athletic training.

Some military facilities that have the AlterG are listed below:

Walter Reed Army Medical Center
Balboa Naval Medical Center
Naval Special Warfare Center GRP (Seals)
Naval Medical Center San Diego
Palo Alto VA Hospital
Mather VA Hospital
Davis VA Hospital
Fort Benning
Camp Lejeune
Camp Pendleton
Fort Bragg
Fort Drum
DMRC Headley Court (UK)

Click this link to find an AlterG near you