Reliability Analysis of Task Performance and Subjective Measures for Assessment of Occupational Exoskeletons

Use of occupational exoskeletons (EXOs), an emerging intervention, has attracted great interest from various industries. To facilitate their industry adoption, emphasis has been placed on the standardization of EXO assessment, but little effort has been made to improve experimental efficiency and effectiveness. Therefore, we investigated the within-session reliability of task performance (completion time) and subjective outcome measures when using arm- and back-support EXOs during donning/doffing and cart pushing/pulling tasks. Twenty-four participants replicated 10 trials of these tasks in each of two sessions, with each participant randomly assigned to one of two EXO groups. Within-session reliability increased with the number of trials and in Session 2 (vs. Session 1). Many outcome measures achieved excellent reliability, though the number of trials required for this varied across outcome measures, tasks, and EXO types. These findings can assist in the efficient design of future studies to assess the effects of EXO use.