The branches · Movement and body · could move a stage within 1 to 5 years
A powered exoskeleton lets a paralysed person walk
A motorised frame strapped to the legs and trunk that swings the wearer's legs for them, so that a person paralysed from the waist down can stand and walk with crutches. The first one was cleared for sale in the United States in 2014, and several makers now sell them to clinics and, in some countries, to individuals. It is a machine worn over the body rather than a change to the body, and it is on the tree because it restores something the body lost.
What would count
A person with a complete spinal cord injury who cannot move their legs stands up and walks a measured distance wearing a powered frame, outside a trial, under a regulator's clearance for home or clinic use.
Who settles it: The regulator's clearance record (the United States Food and Drug Administration or its equivalent) and the maker's own reports
Where it stands
In clinical use. Reached on 26 June 2014, on the record of accessdata.fda.gov. Could move a stage within 1 to 5 years.
The last reading
Once a week every upgrade is read against the news, against what would count above. Open a line to see what that week held. Every reading of this upgrade is on this week's reading.
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16 October 2026 Nothing new
Nothing in the window bears on the next rung, in wide use, which needs a counted population. Lifeward's first-quarter 2026 filing reports personal exoskeleton sales of 1.6 million dollars, up 11 per cent, with Medicare Advantage coverage from three large insurers; no unit count newer than the 2024 annual report's was found. No new clearance.
Notes
The record is the FDA's database entry for its clearance of the ReWalk for home and community use, decided on 26 June 2014. Powered exoskeletons for paralysed users had been used in rehabilitation clinics for several years before that. The next rung, in wide use, needs a counted population; the maker's annual report for 2024 gives 689 ReWalk units in home use and 131 in clinics at the end of that year, about 820 in all, which is a count but not yet many, and other makers publish none.