查看文章

Elevated energy cost is a hallmark feature of gait in older adults. As such, older adults display a general avoidance of walking which contributes to declining health status and risk of morbidity. Exoskeletons offer a great potential for lowering the energy cost of walking, however their complexity and cost often limit their use. To overcome some of these issues, in the present work we propose a passive wearable assistive device, namely Exoband, that applies a torque to the hip flexors thus reducing the net metabolic power of wearers.

Nine participants (age: 62.1 ± 5.6 yr; height: 1.71 ± 0.05 m; weight: 76.3 ± 11.9 kg) walked on a treadmill at a speed of 1.1 m/s with and without the Exoband. Metabolic power was measured by indirect calorimetry and spatio-temporal parameters measured using an optical measurement system …