Abstract
Aim:This study compared how blood pressure and cerebral blood flow changed in young and elderly individuals when actively standing up (standing up from a sitting position on a 40 cm-high chair), when passively standing up with assistance from others, and when standing up with the aid of a lower-limb power-assisted robot or Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL). Methods: Twelve young (22.3 ± 2.1) and elderly (69.6 ± 3.5) healthy individuals participated in this experiment. Participants were asked to stand up under 3 different conditions and blood pressure and cerebral blood flow were measured by monitoring changes in the concentration of oxygenated hemoglobin. Results and Conclusion: As decrease in mean blood pressure, the main effect of age was noted. The standing method did not have any main effect. As decreased cerebral blood flow, the standing method was noted although the effect size was small. No main effect of age was noted, but its effect size was medium. These findings indicate that the decrease in blood flow was greater in younger individuals than in elderly individuals. Regardless of age, the decrease in cerebral blood flow was relatively small for assisted standing and relatively large for assisted standing with HAL.
