Reduction of shoulder burden by improving a method of wearing the assist suit

Abstract

In this paper, reduction of shoulder burden by the power assist suit developed in our previous study is discussed. There was a problem that the user felt shoulder pain when working for a long time by wearing the assist suit. Therefore, a method of wearing the assist suit was improved. The wearing method of the assist suit by combining shoulder belts at chest front was proposed, so that the burden acting on the shoulder part was distributed to the shoulder part and the chest front. To compare the proposed wearing method and the conventional wearing method, the measurement of variation of the muscle hardness and the evaluation by the visual analogue scale (VAS) were carried out. From the results, effectiveness of the proposed wearing method was verified.