Basic Study on Measuring Brain Activity during Exercise for Evaluation of Welfare Device

Recently, Japan (also world-wide countries) has become aged society, and a wide variety welfare device and system have been developed. But evaluation of welfare system and device are limited only stability, intensity and partial operability. Thus, evaluation of usefulness is insufficient. Evaluation of usefulness is necessity to consider about interaction of human and welfare device. In this paper, we measure load of sitting and standing movement to use EMG (Electromyogram) and 3D Motion Capture and set a goal to establish objective evaluation method. We think that establishing objective evaluation method is necessity to develop useful welfare device. We examined possibility of assessing load and fatigue from measuring brain activity to use NIRS (Near Infra-Red Spectroscopy). We think that measuring load and fatigue is very important for developing user-friendly welfare device. Idea of universal design is widespread in welfare device and system. Measuring require verification of all generations. However, we performed to measure younger subjects as a first step. We think that younger subjects were observed the significant difference, because they had enough physical function. Considering younger subjects as a benchmark is appropriate for creating evaluation method.