Abstract
Walking is the most important activity both for elderly people and rehabilitants to spend their daily life safely, comfortably and independently. Walking is the most fundamental movement and athletic ability. For the elderly people, walking especially contributes to improving and maintaining the muscle power, the respiratory and circulatory organ systems, and further walking is a valuable activity to prevent a bedridden condition. This paper proposes a walking assist machine for the elderly people, which use a new active-ankle-foot support machine. Its machine matched to the movement of foot joint. The prototype was developed, and the performance was evaluated.
