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.

Comments

Gread idea, but...

[Blaine Hilton]

I for one think this is a great idea. Many people have an injury, and can not walk for awhile and then its game over for them. If I'm not mistaken this is why nobody wants a broken hip, because the hip is the least of the worries. All of the complications from it and the fact that you will be in bed and not mobile and everything.

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...

Re:I am Glad

[stratjakt]

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.

Re:Bad Idea

[phurley]

Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea?

I doubt you are the only one, but I am proud to not be in your company. I will avidly search out medical and mechanical advantage to increase my life span and ability - because of my sense of self worth. Time will defeat my flesh and I will die, but I will not give up without a fight.

Re:Ob (someone's got to say it)

[Zach Fine]

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.