
Japanese researchers build robotic tail to keep elderly upright - peter_d_sherman
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-robotic-tail/japanese-researchers-build-robotic-tail-to-keep-elderly-upright-idUSKCN1V411X
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octokatt
I, for one, look forward to an old age where I slowly get more cyborg
prosthetics to prevent injury.

There's no way it won't have a marketing budget. We're going to have a bunch
of geriatric Millennials rocking retro-power armor modeled after video game
characters. Best case, anyway, and I'll work for that future hard.

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Jeff_Brown
If it's heavy enough to counterbalance a person's weight, then it's heavy. How
large is the niche of elderly people who are both unbalanced enough to need
this and strong enough to be willing to use it?

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Tagbert
Think of something more like a cat’s tail

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Jeff_Brown
That does seem better -- but a cat walks on four legs, it's already pretty
stable. A vertical animal is going to take more force to counterbalance.

I realize weight can be traded off for length -- but the longer it is, the
more they'll have to worry about the tail knocking into adjacent stuff,
particularly the sensitive bits of nearby short people.

Maybe it's actually lighter than it looks. Particularly if it were only
designed to counter small imbalances, it could be pretty lightweight.

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jolmg
> but a cat walks on four legs, it's already pretty stable.

... that makes me wonder why so many quadruped animals have tails. Maybe it's
needed for balance when they're preparing for a jump and are on 2 legs.

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Jeff_Brown
Horses' tails are (entirely?) for whipping flies. Some lizards' tails are for
sacrificing when chased -- they separate from the body relatively easily. (I
learned that the hard way as a child.) Some tails are surely evolutionary
detritus. And I'm sure there are other uses.

For animals in which the tail is heavy enough to actually affect their
balance, I believe you're right -- they generally do more acrobatic stuff than
we do.

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Jeff_Brown
Might this keep people upright when they're wearing it but simultaneously
worsen their balancing skills when they're not using it?

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octokatt
The answer is yes, but that's a known compliance problem. So, you would have
the same issues with the user deciding they "don't need it today" seen with
canes or walkers.

Physical therapy is the better solution for long-term, with a device like this
serving as a guide rail to get to health, like an assisted chin-up machine
helping someone build muscle to be able to do an unassisted pull-up
eventually.

This question definitely highlights the big thing: Your future health will be
determined in large part to how compliant with medical recommendations you're
willing to be.

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dchichkov
Probably nice to have in alpine ski racing, slalom in particular ;)

