A textile exomuscle that assists the shoulder during functional movements for everyday life

Abstract

Effortlessly performing activities of daily living constitutes a cornerstone of our personal independence. Naturally, various forms of upper limb impairments can have a substantial impact on quality of life. We developed the Myoshirt, a textile-based soft wearable robot, or exomuscle, that autonomously follows the user’s movements and thereby assists the shoulder against gravity. With the Myoshirt, participants without impairments (n = 10, 5 male) experienced a delayed onset of muscular fatigue by 51.1 s (36.1%, P < 0.001), while during a functional task their muscular activity decreased by 49.1% (P < 0.001). Analogously, two participants with upper limb impairments due to a muscular dystrophy and a spinal cord injury experienced a delayed onset of muscular fatigue during unloaded arm lifts by 256.4 s (61.5%) and by 450.6 s (210.3%), respectively. Our evidence suggests that the Myoshirt is an effective tool that intuitively assists the shoulder during functional reaching tasks, with the potential of increasing the personal independence of people with upper limb impairments.