Study of Current Emotion and Muscle Fatigue Evaluation Method for a Walking Assistive Device

Proper exercise is suggested to the elderly for the prevention of a stroke. However, when the elderly do exercise, they are easy to feel mental and physical fatigue, such as weak emotion and muscle fatigue. These reasons make them the reduction of willingness for exercise and further cause a stroke. Thus, it is necessary to study the emotion and body condition of the elderly. The goal of this study is to make the elderly who can have positive emotion and better body condition for maintaining motivation during exercise. A new method considering emotion and muscle fatigue evaluation combined with a walking assistive device was proposed. We respectively studied the emotion-walking relationship, emotion promotion method, and muscle fatigue evaluation. In our previous studies, the emotion-walking relationship was confirmed. The emotion promotion method is proposed using walking strategies in this study. The findings exhibited that the emotion could be promoted to the positive area of the 2D emotion map. Furthermore, a new muscle fatigue evaluation method based on near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is proposed. The findings indicated that the muscle fatigue condition is observed by the difference between the concentration of oxygenated hemoglobin and the concentration of deoxygenated hemoglobin. After that, combining emotion recognition and muscle fatigue evaluation, the new three-dimension (3D) emotion-fatigue model was created to display the mental and physical conditions. Finally, this proposal can be used for various applications for the promotion of exercise and rehabilitation.