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Japanese Deploying Powered Exoskeletons for Elderly
FoeNyx writes "The AFP is reporting that 30 Tokyo firms have planned to set up a joint-venture in next spring to market an 'exo-skeleton type power assist system' named HAL (Hybrid Assistive Leg) developed by Yoshiyuki Sankai, professor and engineer at the Sankai Lab, a Cybernetics specialized Laboratory of the Tsukuba University. When will the next generation be available?" The elderly with their exoskeletons and the bionic nurses will make quite a sight at Japanese nursing homes.
A system like they are developing can have huge consequences, not only on the person's physical abilities, but also on their mental well being. It's no fun to live in a bed, and have to have others help you to do anything and everything except sleep.
Now if only normal people could afford such a beast...
Japan has always been the country of "embrace and extend". They didnt invent the radio, they just refined it. They didnt invent the microchip. They didnt invent the automobile, they just learned how to make them as efficiently as possible (a necessity after pissing all their resources away during WWII).
They did invent the hello kitty vibrator, but that's another story.
Japans a fine country with a lot of resourceful folk, but people tend to overestimate their technocracy. They came up with AIBO, we put men on the moon (and brought them back home safely), and the research involved lead directly or indirectly to over 80,000 consumer products.
That said, they're at it again. They took leg braces and added actuators. I cant imagine who would prefer slowly lumbering around like a mecha-frankenstein to a wheelchair.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Yeah, sure - now grandma will need someone to get her in and out of the backpack/lifting system ... how much does that backpack weigh, anyhow? Her back is bad enough already...
Seems a bit bulky doesn't it, i just get this picture of pensioners falling backwards because of the weight of this pack on their backs, flailing around like beetles.
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Not to be cruel or anything. But what has gotten into Americans/Japanese about this irrational fear of dying and the desire to be breathing (not necessarily alive) for incredibly long periods of time.
If you had your brand new exoskeleton, what would that give you? Are you going to go to work, climb a mountain, ride a bike, drive a car, have children? At most it will give you the freedom to get out of a chair and get a glass of water, go to the bathroom, or whatever. If that was an improvement to my life and this was as good as it was going to get, I'd just as soon checkout.
The eskimo had older people in thier societies as well. When they got to an age where thier wisdom, skills, etc were of no value to the society, it was understood that the older person would take a walk on the ice and go to sleep, and not wake up.
Sheesh, what is next, cryogenically freezing people so they can come back later on? Oh, nevermind.
Not to be cruel or whatever, but what has gotten into Americans/Japanese about this irrational fear of dying and the desire to keep their teeth in good condition as they age.
Yeah if you brush your teeth three times a day, maybe your teeth will stay with you until you're 90. So what? Are you going to bother to eat chocolates when your 80? Will it make you young enough for me to not tease you about your incontinence? No of course not.
The people in some other culture more wise than ours had old people too. And let me tell you, they were more natural about stuff and didn't have this fear of going to pot. They lost their teeth at 60 and died before 70. Those were the days.
Sheesh, back when I was in school, I didn't have that irrational fear of getting bad grades, so I didn't study and failed, just like we were meant to do.
On a more serious note, I can't understand how the poster to whom I'm responding could be serious in his/her criticisms of an invention that will allow old folk to have greater mobility and yes do more activities in their later years. This is about quality of life, not a life-extension.
Its all about keeping ahead of death until the situation can be improved. Medical science is flying and crazy new shit comes out every other month. Sure, there's not a whole lot that can be done to allow a 90 year old to look and feel 30. Yet. But there may be, so in the meantime I'll take any innovation, such as an exoskeleton that will help keep me from busting my head open, as a means of keeping just a step or two ahead of death in the hopes that I can delay long enough to get a real improvement that'll score me a few more quality years. Alive, I can still fight for a better future. Dead, I can only decompose.
And yes, I will get cryogenically frozen if the opportunity should be available when I die. The narrow odds for survival offered by cryogenics are still far better than the impossibility of survival guaranteed by decomposition, cremation, or taxidermy.
Shawn
Because you gotta bitch
VOLTRON!!!!!