Saskia Baltrusch

60 Chapter 3 squatting (1.70 ± 2.68 vs. 0.20 ± 0.75; p=0.000) and wide standing (2.45 ± 4.75 vs. 0.45 ± 1.28; p=0.001). The general discomfort caused by the device for each task when wearing the exoskeleton is shown in figure 4, with 0=very comfortable and 10=very uncomfortable. Figure 4: General discomfort caused by the device in the exoskeleton condition for each task. 0=very comfortable, 10=very uncomfortable. Highest general discomfort was found when bending the trunk (5.35 ± 3.4). Lowest general discomfort was found for trunk rotation (2 ± 1.85). The most prominent locations where general discomfort was experienced were chest, upper legs (14 out of 18 participants) and hips (6 out of 18 participants). To assess whether a decrease in performance, as seen in figure 2, can be explained by the experienced general discomfort, as seen in figure 4, a Spearman rank order correlation was conducted. Over all tasks no correlation was found between general discomfort and objective performance.