Power Armor For the Elderly

aicrules writes "The question of how to care for the growing number of people in the upper age bracket has a new answer - assistive power armor for the elderly." From the article: "The sleek, high-tech get-up looks like a white suit of armor. It straps onto a person's arms, legs and back and is equipped with a computer, motors and sensors that detect electric nerve signals transmitted from the brain when a person tries to move his limbs. When the sensors detect the nerve signals, the computer starts up the relevant motors to assist the person's motions. Sankai says the suit, dubbed 'Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) 5,' can let a person who can barely do an 176-pound leg press handle 397 pounds."

Comments

Please, put down your weapon

[TPIRman]

In Korea, only old people are Robocop.

Re:Please, put down your weapon

[N3Roaster]

And to think, they named it after a computer that went insane.

Is anyone else thinking super soldiers?

[synthex]

It's a great concept, but can anyone see anything other than cost per suit preventing this being used as an aid for modern soldiers? With modification, obviously. Then they just need to teach the soldiers bad one liners ('Time to take out ze trash') and we have a super soldier/Arnold hybrid!

HAL-5 ??

[Anonymous Coward]

So that's like 8995 more HALs before this is interesting.

Just in time....

[Hamster Lover]

for Schwarzenegger's next movie!

They could combine the Terminator/RoboCop story line:

Prime Directives:

1. Get off my lawn!
2. Protect the elderly.
3. Uphold Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security.

Power Amor!

[HermanAB]

No, Power Amor - inevitable once Viagra fails to work...