NUH National Rehabilitation Centre Enhances Patient Therapy with first 360-degree hoist in the UK | Latest news

Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust’s brand-new National Rehabilitation Centre (NRC) now features the UK’s first 360-degree hoist, a state-of-the-art piece of equipment that helps patients learning to walk again.  

The hoist, known as the ZeroG 3-Dimensional by Aretech, will help to advance rehabilitation outcomes for patients with neurological, orthopaedic and other balance disorders. It offers fall protection and automatically manages body-weight support as patients re-learn and practice functional activities such as walking, standing, and activities of daily living.

This innovative 3-dimensional robotic body weight support system allows patients to move freely in any direction, rather than simply on a single plane as most other hoists are limited to.

The NRC is a 70-bed, state-of-the-art specialist rehabilitation centre for NHS patients who have experienced a life-changing illness or injury and is co-located with the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre (DMRC) on the Stanford Hall Rehabilitation Estate (SHRE) near Loughborough.

Alison Wildt, NRC Innovation Lead, said: 

“We are excited to be able to offer this state-of-the-art technology which puts the NRC at the forefront of advanced rehab and quality care.

“ZeroG 3D will give our patients the safety and confidence to push their rehab to new levels as it can move in every direction. 

“It not only protects our patients from falling, but offers them stability and support to challenge themselves in regaining independent functional movement as well as the confidence to challenge themselves in activities that they would not have been able to access without it.”

ZeroG 3D monitors an individual’s movements from above to provide fall protection, and the dynamic body-weight support can be set to offload the person’s weight by up to 90kg, making them feel lighter in a “reduced gravity” environment. This allows them to practice therapy at higher-intensity levels and sooner after an injury.

As patients progress through in their rehabilitation journey, they can move in a variety of ways such as circular paths, squares, and figure-eight patterns as well as down to ground and above ground to allow them to practice activities, for example going up stairs. 

As the patient improves, the amount of dynamic support can be decreased so the person does more under their own capabilities. 

ZeroG 3D also records data from each training session so that therapists can monitor functional progress.