The Gait Harness System by Second Step, Inc., (aka Second Step) is used in a broad spectrum of physical therapy applications and provides a means of therapeutic intervention with gait and balance training. The Gait Harness System is used by private caregivers and those working in occupational and physical therapy to help people walk again after challenges due to patients or clients loss of balance, incomplete spinal cord injuries (SCI), traumatic brain injuries (TBI), nursing home falls, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, lower extremity amputation, and other ambulation, gait and balance rehabilitation challenges.

If a patient wants to walk again, then why not try?

The most commonly reported goal patients in rehabilitative recovery programs report is to be able to walk again. The Gait Harness System provides a safe environment for individuals to perform a higher level of functional and movement skills that they could not perform safely, or at all, through other means.  

The System is a necessary tool to facilitate an aggressive, but controlled, approach to stimulating the neuromuscular, cardiovascular, and musculoskeletal systems. It also provides a chance for individuals with a variety of neurologic and musculoskeletal injuries to restore a sense of independence and normalcy to their lives.  The System has been especially useful for hemiplegic participants who have very poor balance and are therefore at high risk for falls. It puts patients and their families back into a real world environment. 

Believing that recovery is a better approach than adaptation, therapists can set ambitious goals for patients.

Traditionally, treatment has focused on adaptation, or learning to live with the resulting impairments, but many clinicians are now looking at the opportunity for recovery. Neuroplasticity is the term that describes the brain's ability to reorganize by forming new neural connections necessary for recovery. Therapists may try different things until they find the method or techniques that will work.  People are starting to realize there is more potential for recovery of the brain.  

The right exercise, for the right duration, at the right time, can promote neurotrophic growth factors. Products and treatment techniques can be implemented with this in mind. This should be done not only with specific rehabilitation intent, but also with a hologic focus.

Videos posted on this website show patients and therapists successfully using the Gait Harness System. 

Recovery of function is becoming more common because the Gait Harness System works.  Many patients using the Gait Harness System, who have suffered TBI’s and SCI’s and are 5, 10, and 15 years post injury, are now beginning to walk and stand again for the first time.  

Understanding the Gait Harness System and its applications to the life and health of any patient is due in part to the implicit design of the System, and then to the application of physical therapy principles and the fundamentals of physiology, biomechanics and neurology. The Gait Harness System is a necessary tool to provide reinforcement of newly learned patterns.    

The safety of the Gait Harness System benefits patients, family, facility, caregiver and insurance program alike.  Many of those using the Gait Harness System also realize that greater savings can be realized from longer, recovery-focused care following the initial injury, rather than repeat care, which targets adaptations and accidents later in life.

Second Step, Inc. is "Helping People Walk Again" by keeping patients and caregivers safe, simultaneously facilitating functional therapy outcomes.