Abstract
The objective of this laboratory study was to assess the cardiorespiratory consequences related to the use of different back-support exoskeletons during a repetitive lifting task. Fourteen women and thirteen men performed a dynamic stoop lifting task involving full flexion/extension of the trunk in the sagittal plane. This task was repeated for 5 min with a 10 kg load to handle. Four conditions were tested: with a passive exoskeleton (P-EXO), with two active exoskeletons (A-EXO1 and A-EXO2), as well as without exoskeleton (FREE). The oxygen consumption rate and cardiac costs were measured continuously. Results showed a significantly lower (p < 0.05) oxygen consumption rate for all exoskeletons as compared to FREE (12.6 ± 2.2 ml/kg/min). The values were also significantly lower (p < 0.001) for A-EXO1 (9.1 ± 1.8 ml/kg/min) compared to A-EXO2 (11.0 ± 1.8 ml/kg/min) and P-EXO (11.8 ± 2.4 ml/kg/min). Compared to FREE (59.7 ± 12.9 bpm), the cardiac cost was significantly reduced (p < 0.001) only for A-EXO1 (45.1 ± 11.5 bpm). Several factors can explain these differences on the cardiorespiratory parameters observed between exoskeletons: the technology used (passive vs active), the torque provided by the assistive device, the weight of the system, but also the level of anthropomorphism (related to the number of joints used by the exoskeleton). Our results also highlighted the lack of interaction between the exoskeleton and sex. Thereby, the three back-support exoskeletons tested appeared to reduce the overall physical workload associated with a repetitive lifting task both for men and women.
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The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable.
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Acknowledgements
We thank O. Morel, O. Remy, and G. Reno for their technical support, C. Gaudez for providing medical assistance, and I. Urmes for her statistical support.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by KD and MS. The first draft of the manuscript was written by MS and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Schwartz, M., Desbrosses, K., Theurel, J. et al. Using passive or active back-support exoskeletons during a repetitive lifting task: influence on cardiorespiratory parameters. Eur J Appl Physiol 122, 2575–2583 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-022-05034-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-022-05034-x