Father builds exoskeleton to help wheelchair-bound son walk

Re:Father builds exoskeleton to help wheelchair-bound son walk by dalbasal on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @02:10PM (#27975586)

I think both exoskeletons and prosthetics suffer from similar issues. To reach affordability, you need unit volume. To get unit volume, you need an initial user segment capable of paying what such a device currently costs. In computing, for example, there's always someone willing to pay for bleeding edge, which then paves the way to price reduction. With these, there just isn't much daylight between prices where basically no one can afford it, and prices where everyone who needs one can.

People like you are the best hope. Independent inventors aren't bound by manufacturing economics.

Side question: how much power does it take to run existing, mobility oriented exoskeletons?

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Re:Father builds exoskeleton to help wheelchair-bound son walk by kelnos on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @02:34PM (#27975855)

I imagine new medical tech is usually covered by insurance, which makes it possible for people to afford it initially (and even later, when the device is more at scale), but I expect it's really hard to get insurance companies (in the US at least) to consider covering new things, especially when there is a cheaper alternative.

I imagine an insurance company is heartless enough to believe that a much cheaper wheelchair is "good enough" and there's "no reason" to pay the hefty costs for an experimental exoskeleton.

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Re:Father builds exoskeleton to help wheelchair-bound son walk by arpafaucon on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @05:12PM (#27989780)

I live in the EU, and I surprised to discover that insurance companies themselves are interested in funding those exos themselves. The total medical bill of a paraplegic person a or the course of its whole life can get very high. Recent clinical studies appear to show that time spent standing could really improve the health, to a point that "investing" into an exo for their patients could become worth it.

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