Title: Proposal of guidelines for application of endoskeleton assist suit 'sustainable' to transfer assistance in nursing care

Authors: Chiharu Ishii; Ryo Sugiyama; Takahiro Yamada

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Hosei University, Tokyo, 184-8584, Japan ' Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Hosei University, Tokyo, 184-8584, Japan ' Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Hosei University, Tokyo, 184-8584, Japan

Abstract: In this paper, two tasks related to endoskeleton assist suit 'sustainable' were conducted. First, since the endoskeleton directly adds compressive force to the wearer's lumbar disc, burdens on the lumbar disc were analysed using a musculoskeletal model software 'AnyBody Modeling System'. From the results of dynamic analysis, it was verified that not only muscle activity of erector spinae muscle, but also lumbar burdens such as spinal disc compressive force and spinal disc shear force are reduced under wearing the endoskeleton assist suit. Thus, safety of the endoskeleton was shown. Second, since an index of a suitable assist suit that should be used in transfer assistance has not been established yet, guidelines to use the passive-type sustainable and the active-type sustainable for transfer assistance in nursing care corresponding to the extent of care-receiver's condition were proposed. Then, verification experiments were executed, and the experimental results showed validity of the proposed guidelines.

Keywords: endoskeleton assist suit 'sustainable'; musculoskeletal model; lumbar burdens; transfer assistance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMA.2022.122326

International Journal of Mechatronics and Automation, 2022 Vol.9 No.2, pp.81 - 89

Received: 14 Sep 2021
Accepted: 08 Nov 2021
Published online: 19 Apr 2022 *

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