Saskia Baltrusch

247 Chapter 9 supported in these working tasks and do not feel hindered in their range of motion. Furthermore, lifting with the exoskeleton decreased physiological strain. Work-related low-back pain might therefore be preventable when wearing an exoskeleton, due to lower mechanical loading and a lower risk of getting fatigued. Major points that still need to be improved are comfort by reducing the weight and the dimension of the device and the (perceived) support level. Thus, implementing the exoskeleton in the working environment is still a challenge and further improvements of the design are needed to make it ready to be used in real practice. The industry might be the most promising field of application at this time, supporting employees with a history of low-back pain. Furthermore, it was shown that an adequate implementation strategy is essential to deal with end-users’ concerns over introducing a passive exoskeleton. Maybe even more important, this thesis showed that applying a user-centered approach is essential to reveal design requirements that are tailored to the end-users’ needs and affected the exoskeleton design and the study design and provided further directions for the future. I have shown that the combination of listening to the end-users and measuring numerical data is essential to bridge the gap between biomechanical solutions and end-users’ perceptions. “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts”. (William Bruce Cameron) 9