The house, in Koganei, western Tokyo, is part of a shift towards smaller care facilities for the elderly as traditional nursing homes struggle to cope with the 520,000 people on waiting lists for specialised care. In the coming years, the suits could be common sights in places such as JC Group's facility, a once-vacant traditional-style house that has been converted into a care home for the elderly as the country attempts to ease the social and financial strain of supporting its greying population. The US military has something similar, but even that's not as easy to use as ours, which takes 10 seconds to put on." "No other suit can be worn with this much ease that also enables its wearer to pick up something weighing as much as 30kg. "I don't think anyone else is doing what we're doing with the muscle suit," Kobayashi said. The care robotics industry alone will be worth ¥35bn (£200m) by the end of the decade, according to a study by Yano Research Institute. And Japan's government is offering subsidies to encourage engineers to develop even more sophisticated robotics for the medical and elderly care markets. Cyberdyne, based near Tokyo, has had some success with its Hybrid Assistive Limb robotic suit, which it rents out to hospitals and care facilities, including several in Europe. Tokyo University of Science and Kikuchi Seisakusho are not alone in trying to develop affordable, fully functional exoskeletons. "The elderly care and medical markets are only going to get bigger, so we want to make the most of the opportunity. "It's very rare that a piece of equipment like this is made commercially available," he added. Initially, the suits will be rented out for about 25,000 yen (£146) a month, with a smaller number being sold for ¥300,000-¥800,000, the firm's president, Isao Kikuchi, said. Kikuchi Seisakusho's factory in Fukushima prefecture is expected to manufacture up to 200 muscle suits a month, starting this summer. "The muscle suit makes lifting so much easier, and the people being cared for don't have to worry about being dropped." "In the past when workers lifted people, they had to really exert themselves, which also had the effect of causing anxiety among the elderly people they were caring for," Kobayashi said.
The muscle suit has earned good reviews where it has been trialled – not least from care workers who had been forced to take time off with back problems brought on by, among other tasks, lifting residents into and out of baths.
Kobayashi's 5kg muscle suit, which goes on sale next month, is expected to be adopted first by manual and agricultural workers, who are prone to lower back pain, as well as employees at daycare and retirement homes.Īs the suits become more sophisticated and affordable, Kobayashi and his collaborators at the die maker Kikuchi Seisakusho predict they will be in common use among disabled and elderly people with mobility problems, possibly by the end of this decade. There is zero risk to the wearer, even if it malfunctions." "The joints are moved by artificial muscles, so the wearer is able to move about unencumbered.