Exoskeletons in the digital era: A way to improve the level of physical activity among elderly citizens.
ABSTRACT
Background:
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on the level of physical activity of elderly citizens.
Objective:
The objective of this communication focused on the potential benefits of assistive walking devices for elderly citizens.
Methods:
Twenty-four elderly citizens participated in this feasibility study. During a minor restricted period of the COVID-19 pandemic, the participants answered the Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI), International Physical Activity Questionnaire long version (IPAQ) and quality of Life assessed by the EQ5D-3L(QoL) questionnaire. Physiological and biomechanical assessments were made in laboratory settings with and without wearing an exoskeleton (aLQ, IMASEN Electrical Industrial Co., Ltd, Aichi, Japan). The aLQ is a passive-assistive lower limb walking exoskeleton activated by a cam spring system designed to improve gait. After the tests, the participants answered the following questions: “Do you feel the exoskeleton is helping you to walk?” and “What is your opinion on the device?”.
Results:
The participants were community dwelling elderly, aged 72.6±4.5 years (mean±SD) and were characterized by an overall high level of physical activity of 3069±2847 MET-min/week. Their overall TFI indicated an overall frailty score of 3.5±2.5. The participants reported a QoL score of 6.7±1.6 and an overall health score of 76.4±17.1. Moreover, seven of the 24 participants reported that carrying the tested exoskeleton did not induce any noticeable changes and three that they walked better with the device than without.
Conclusions:
The present findings are of importance in our current digital era where the COVID-19 pandemic forced municipalities and hospitals to cancel or postpone training and rehabilitation of elderly citizens resulting in a degradation of the level of physical activity and health in general. The use of assistive walking devices may be a way to improve or maintain their level of physical activity. Future studies using a prospective design should confirm that. Clinical Trial: NA
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.