### Advantages of Robotic-Assisted Rehabilitation Compared to Conventional Therapy  
Nowadays, rehabilitation is the main treatment for the recovery of gait and balance functions. Several studies proved that repetition, high-intensity, and task-oriented rehabilitation play a key role in neuroplasticity phenomena and the outcomes of the rehabilitation [17]. However, conventional therapy is time- and energy-consuming for therapists, and thus it is difficult for them to provide a high-dosage and high-intensity rehabilitation. Furthermore, current assessments in gait [18] and balance [19] rehabilitation are based on subjective and qualitative clinical scales, which limits the possibility of tailoring the rehabilitation to individual needs.  
Robot-assisted therapy uses robotic devices as a therapeutic approach for treating neurological injuries and assisting in rehabilitation training by automating the rehabilitation therapy process [20]. Robotic devices can supply repetitive, intensive, and task-oriented training [21], which frees up therapists from physically demanding tasks and allows them to supervise more than one patient simultaneously. Moreover, they are able to carry out more complex rehabilitation exercises and provide feedback to the patients in a motivating environment, which stimulates functional recovery and promotes neuroplasticity phenomena [22]. Hence, the use of robotic devices in therapy can overcome the limitations of conventional therapy and enhance the rehabilitation conditions. Also, robot-assisted therapy can be equipped with sensors that provide unbiased data and allow objective assessment of the patient's progress in terms of gait and balance [23] and propose a more effective tailored rehabilitation [24].  
Despite the evidence of less efficacy quantifying gait [25], subjective and observer's experience-based conventional therapy continues to be predominant among clinicians, mainly due to its inherent simplicity, availability, and low cost [26]. However, even if this conventional therapy may be useful for an initial overall evaluation of some balance and gait parameters, it is not adequate for analyzing the multifaceted aspects of gait variability and complexity [27].  
The skepticism and fear of rehabilitation team members to be replaced by robots may be another reason that hinders the application of robot-assisted rehabilitation in a clinical setting. Nonetheless, in rehabilitation, it is necessary to optimize the trade-off between the number of people treated, the intensity and duration of the treatment, and the associated health-care costs [28]. In this context, robotic devices do not make physiotherapists redundant: they support them with the more physically challenging tasks [29] to increase the intensity, duration, and number of patients treated in a cost-effective way.  
There is evidence that robot-assisted rehabilitation can improve balance function [30] and help patients to achieve independent walking and a higher walking speed [31]. However, the superiority, in terms of balance and gait outcomes, of robot-assisted rehabilitation compared to conventional therapy is still unclear. In fact, some Cochrane reviews showed no difference between robotic and conventional gait therapy in promoting motor recovery in patients with neurological disorders [32]. Although there is a lack of clear evidence to support the robotic approach over conventional therapy, different studies proved that a combination of both approaches led to better gait [33; 34] and balance function [35] outcomes than the use of just conventional training without robotic devices. These findings suggest that robot-assisted therapy may be a complementary approach for gait and balance function rehabilitation.